


Officially Unofficial

by Ren (FahRENheit2006)



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-04
Updated: 2013-06-04
Packaged: 2017-12-14 00:07:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 57,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/830413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FahRENheit2006/pseuds/Ren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Series of M!Shep/Ashley ME3 talks taking place between the Citadel and the Final Battle. A supplement to the already existing scenes to explore their relationship. Talk and fluff. Some swears. Non-explicit adult content. Includes Extended Cut scenes, but not Leviathan, Citadel or Omega DLCs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Things Need to be Said: Docking Bay

**Author's Note:**

> This fic assumes you've already played through Mass Effect 1-3 with Ashley Williams as a love interest so there's little to no background and a hearty dose of spoilers plus references to old conversations, particularly ME1. Quite literally a fic for fans.
> 
> Bioware owns Mass Effect. I own a keyboard.

_How did I get here?_ Commander Shepard thought for the tenth time in five hours. Though he could take a cab from the Embassy to the Docking Bay, Shepard was more interested in stretching his legs and working off some of the adrenaline from earlier.

The human Spectre fidgeted with the zipper on his leather jacket, resisting the urge to tap his foot in time to the lively beat that played in the elevator. The view whipping by the elevator as it traveled the length of the Citadel ward arm sobered Shepard. This was no place for tapping feet. Smoke still billowed from damaged vehicles and broken apartment windows while med teams and C-Sec officers tried to make sense of the body count.

 _Goddamn Cerberus_ , Shepard growled inwardly as a particularly gruesome scene reflected in the window. A turian woman cradled the head of her child in her lap, her mandibles spread in a cry of agony as a human medic tried to pry her away. Similar scenes of other species flickered by. Elcor. Volus. Asari. Human. No race was too precious or advanced to be spared from The Illusive Man's dark intentions.

Shepard sighed as the elevator paused at Huerta Memorial Hospital. The door opened to reveal utter chaos even in the waiting room. Cots were haphazardly strewn about to administer makeshift triage for both purposeful and accidental victims of the carnage Cerberus caused by storming the wards.

The Commander's hand hesitated over the door open button, his eyes drifted longingly to an empty seat by the left window. _Thane._ Only hours earlier had a drell occupied that seat, calmly lost in his meditations. Now that same drell was being prepared for burial by his mourning son.

Thane's final prayer still echoed in Shepard's mind as the elevator doors closed once more.

_Kalahira, mistress of inscrutable depths, I ask forgiveness._   
_Kalahira, whose waves wear down stone and sand._   
_Kalahira, wash the sins from this one, and set him on the distant shore of the infinite spirit._   
_Kalahira, this one's heart is pure, but beset by wickedness and contention._   
_Guide this one to where the traveler never tires, the lover never leaves, the hungry never starve._   
_Guide this one, Kalahira, and he will be a companion to you as he was to me._

_How_ _did I get here?_ Shepard thought again, accompanied by another weary sigh. … _Eleven_.

 _Where is this place Thane wanted for me? Will I ever be worthy of it?_ Shepard chewed his cheek as his hands returned once more to the jacket zipper. He's been standing still for too long. Had too much time to think. Dwell on what he is. _And isn't_.

He was relieved the final leg of the elevator ride dipped out of view of the civilian part of the Citadel. The Commander hated not being able to remain behind and assist with the cleanup. Or help Commander Bailey chase down The Illusive Man's assassin. _That son of a bitch_. But Shepard was forever needed Elsewhere, and Elsewhere is where Shepard will go. Whatever it takes to stop the Reapers.

_I'm just …tired of being one step behind. With Saren. The Collectors. The Reapers. And Cerberus on top of all that. When will I be fast enough? How did I get here?_

_Twelve._ The elevator finally opened on Docking Bay D24. Shepard didn't even try to suppress inhaling with relief at the familiar sight. No smoke, no bodies, no bullet holes. The crowd in the waiting area had grown considerably larger, while the atmosphere was more tense. But no outward signs of Cerberus's efforts spattered the walls or floors.

Striding purposefully down the hall, Shepard allowed himself a moment to get lost in the view. The familiar weaving and traffic of ships docking and departing in the distance set to the murmur of soldiers discussing their posts was comforting. _At least some things never change. Even during a war._

He hung a left at the fork in the corridor then paused a moment for the biometric scanner to trace green light over his form. The jetway door slid open into a short hallway outside the Normandy airlock. Standing next to the window, bathed in the artificial glow of the Citadel sky, was Lieutenant Commander Ashley Williams.

She turned at the sound of the door opening, her furrowed brow smoothing into a more impassive expression. Her arms crossed as she shifted her weight, tapping the heel of a boot against a duffle bag on the floor.

"Shepard… I don't know what to say…"

He believed it, because he didn't know either. Ashley's voice was husky with emotion, trying to make sense of what had happened hours earlier.

Bits and pieces sprang back to Shepard's mind as he hesitated on how to proceed. _All this time, and we're back to square one on this. Again. How did we get here?_

 _Thirteen. Dammit._ "Your bandages were still fresh. How did you end up working with Udina?" He couldn't keep the contempt out of his voice saying the Councilor's name.

Ash relinquished the safety of the corner and took a few steps toward Shepard, though she didn't meet his accusing gaze. "You saw me in the hospital, I was going crazy." She shrugged while a hand popped up in exasperation. She continued simply, "Felt like I was letting everyone down."

Dark eyes finally left the floor to meet Shepard's blue. "When Udina made me a Spectre, I thought it was a chance to do some good." The tenseness in his shoulders eased as he nodded in understanding, "I couldn't just sit back and watch, either."

"Yea, but it sure turned into a mess," Ash's voice cracked, her gaze switched back to the window in guilt. _It sure did,_ Shepard thought wearily.

 _All I remember is those eyes and the muzzle of her pistol pointed at my chest. And so much shouting. From all sides. The Council. Udina. Liara at my back watching the elevator. Smoke, alarms, distant gunfire. It was a beautiful warzone. We shouldn't have been there._ "We're on the same side," Shepard stated softly.

Rather than relief, the Lieutenant Commander instead felt a fresh stab of guilt. Turning away, Ashley headed towards the window to focus on the bold etching of NORMANDY on the ship a short distance away rather than the sick jitter in her gut. "…I can't believe it came to that. We were so close to…"

 _We don't have time for this. It's gonna make us both crazy and we can't afford more distrust._ Shepard resisted the urge to take that extra step forward and rest a hand on that inviting shoulder. "Ash... it's okay. We figured it out." The Commander part of Shepard took over. His voice hardened to a more professional tone. "We stopped Udina and got to walk away. That's the important part."

Ashley turned her head to look at Shepard, relieved to switch to a more business-like conversation. The two Spectres speculated on indoctrination. If Udina was. If Cerberus is. What it would feel like. How to fight it. Can you even fight it? ...Does it matter? We have to.

"I wanted to talk to you about that… I'd prefer to ride this thing out aboard the Normandy." Ash's formal tone wavered as she paced away from the window, then met Shepard's eyes with equal parts determination and vulnerability.

Shepard wanted to welcome her aboard with open arms. He remembered how easily it came three years ago. They could relate. _You never get used to seeing friends die. Or dead civilians._ _It's nice when someone makes you feel welcome,_ she had said then. _How did we get back here, in this place, again?_

_Fourteen. Does that count? It probably counts._

He let the silence go on a little too long, so he extended a hand. Very formal. Ashley's gloved hand grasped his. Determination took over the vulnerability this time in the battle in her eyes.

"Couldn't do this without you." Shepard found he meant it. Every word. _Even though it's all a mess. One minute I see anger in those dark depths, full of accusation and reproach. But then there is softness. I feel sick remembering those eyes swollen shut from that AI mech's vicious assault on Mars, the fear that they might never open again._ _I can't do this without her._

Ash leaned down to shoulder the heavy duffle. Shepard knew better than to offer to help.

"Ash?"

"Yeah?"

"It's good to have you back."

And there it was. Finally. Her full lips broke into a smile, the first one he'd genuinely seen since their anticlimactic homecoming on Earth.

She said nothing, but spun on her heel to haul her gear through the airlock after a crisp salute. Shepard didn't follow, but remained behind to look out the window at his ship. He heard an excited exclamation from Joker as the doors whooshed shut, missing what was undoubtedly a heartwarming and sarcastic reunion.

He raised his right arm to lean against the glass, then rested his forehead on the back of his hand. He pressed his nose to the glass, asking the view to once again quiet all the calculations, strategies and to-dos that already started pounding at the front door in his mind. Begging to be let in.

And for the fifteenth time today, Shepard wondered how he got here.


	2. Airing of Grievances: Shuttle Bay

"Great work, Commander. Hackett out." The glowing blue hologram winked off.

Shepard gingerly stepped over the large cabling running the length of the vid room and let out a long sigh. He raised a hand to brush his fingertips over the bristling of dark hair on his head, but stopped short when he felt the metal weave of armor gauntlets. _I really should go change._

Striding purposefully through the war room, Shepard distractedly flicked through his ever-growing to-do list on his Omni-tool. _A new message from Wrex. Specialist Traynor needs to speak with me. Primarch Victus has news of Palaven._

Upon reaching the elevator he made a swiping motion across the orange interface to an interactive map of the Normandy, complete with locations of crewmembers. He liked to keep a weather eye out to make sure everyone was making the rotations to the sleeper pods and socializing well.

_Liara is in her cabin like always, probably poring over data from her agents. Allers must be trying to squeeze an interview out of the engineers. Cortez deserves a long lunch in the mess after all his help on with the reactors on Cyone._

Shepard's hand hesitated over the elevator button to his cabin when he saw two blue dots in the shuttle bay on his map reticle. _Vega, J. and Williams, A._

His cheek twitched with a suppressed grin as he double tapped the number 5. _There's an armor locker there. It's not like I'm making an extra trip._ He shifted the helmet under his left arm and rolled his shoulders reflexively. Always ready for anything.

A neon blue optic array glided over him as he stepped off the elevator. Shepard never knew what the proper protocol was for his new dog mech prowling the shuttle bay. _Do I pet it? Wave? Throw it a wrench to chew on?_ He settled on a two finger salute at his temple, which seemed to please the robodog enough to wander over to an ensign sifting through cargo boxes.

Shepard shook his head and made his way over to the armory station, trying to make a casual sweep of the room. The ensign logging cargo appeared to be playing a drum solo on his datapad, thoroughly engrossed in music playing in his earpiece. James was busy with his favorite activity: working out. His current regimen seemed to favor cross-legged pull-ups with plenty of reps, high-intensity.

And then there was Ashley. For a second, Shepard had a fleeting glimpse of déjà vu for the _Normandy SR-1_ , as Ashley was hunched over the weapon bench modding her assault rifle. Even with a new rank, the former Gunnery Chief was most at home at the armory with a tool in hand. But instead of the trademark sarcastic cheerfulness of the Chief, the new Lieutenant Commander huffed in irritation while field-stripping her gun.

"Vega, do you **ever** clean these weapons? There are at least 4 components in here showing wear and tear. I could pop in a new heat sink and the whole thing would fall apart. It'll be hard to stop Cerberus by winging rifle parts."

"Hey, I'll get around to it. First thing's first," James puffed out cheerfully, immune to her scorn.

"Unless you want me to throw your deltoids at Cerberus, you should get your ass over here and take notes," she retorted while unscrewing the rifle scope.

James paused on a downbeat to smirk, "That would be a waste of some mighty fine delts, ma'am."

"That would depend on who you ask, LT."

Shepard grinned, partly wishing Cortez was here to join in busting Vega's balls. _But since he's not…_ "I dunno, LC. I think the Lieutenant qualifies as a weapon. Or at least his thick head would work as a battering ram."

A wave of brunette locks spun as Ashley's head jerked to the right. She shot Shepard a quick smile behind her before returning her focus to the bench.

"You wound me, Loco. After all those times I pulled your bacon outta the fire. Do we need to have a rematch? This time at least there'd be a ref. You're in, right Williams?" James dropped to the floor to shake out his arms before he strolled over to the weapon bench.

Ash made a shooing motion when James snatched the ammo upgrade off her table, but then paused, "If you're gonna fight someone, why not someone you haven't **lost** to yet?"

" **Ha!** …are you serious?"

"What? Not up to the task? If I win, you're on weapon duty for a week. And you have to do it right for a change, with no breaks to kiss your biceps."

James stroked his stubble, intrigued. "Oooh, that is pretty tempting, LC. If I win, you're back on gunny duty for the week. And you gotta give my girl Franchesca a new set."

"Franchesca?" Ash wrinkled her nose in confusion.

James patted an Eviscerator shotgun leaning against the requisitions console. "My baby. She's got a mean kick and she's ready for **anything**. She's been itchin' for a damage upgrade. And she's gettin' a little light, maybe an ammo mod to boost capacity?"

Ashley crossed her arms thoughtfully before replying, "You're on, Vega."

"Hell yes!" James punched his fist into his open hand, then they both turned to Shepard. "You gonna ref, Commander? We need an impartial party."

_Impartial my ass,_ Ash inwardly grinned. Shepard caught the hint of a smirk on her lips and raised an eyebrow. She raised her fingertips over her crossed arms innocently, her body language silently saying _I wasn't implying anything_. Shepard shook his head as he stowed his shin guards.

"I should probably give you both a lecture about betting while on duty." He paused, savoring the brief expressions of shame on both marines. "But then I wouldn't get to see Williams kick your ass, Vega."

"What, you're takin' her side already? That's cold, Loco." James grinned jovially, then headed over to the oblivious ensign in the middle of the hangar to suggest taking a break.

Ashley strode over to where Shepard was undoing the clasps on his boots. She popped open a locker to tuck away her navy blue officer's gloves. Shepard stood up straight, raising an eyebrow as Ash put a hand on the zipper of her Alliance dress uniform. Favoring him with a challenging glare, Ash tugged the zipper down to reveal a simple white tank top. To Shepard's credit, his eyes remained locked on Ashley's, with only his peripheral vision taking in the view.

"Watch and learn, Commander. This is how you beat you a marine," Ash nodded for emphasis and flashed him a smug grin before making her way to the center of the bay. In a practiced motion she gathered up most of her long hair, twisted it a few times, wrapped it into a tight bun at the back, then secured it with the hair tie always on her wrist.

Shepard used the few seconds of privacy while Ash and James warmed up to tug off the rest of his lower armor and slid on a pair of Alliance-issue casual pants and boots before starting on his chest armor.

James bounced on his toes while appraising Ashley as she stretched out. "You look pretty fit, LC. Didn't get all soft after moving up from NCO."

Cracking her knuckles, Ash shot James a withering look. "Fit enough to give you a good beating, LT. Do you wanna fight or braid each other's hair?"

He laughed and fell into a loose boxing stance as Ashley started to circle him, fists raised.

"So, you and the Commander, huh?" At James's offhand question, Shepard pulled so hard on his arm guard he ripped the clasp off and swore under his breath. _What, does_ _ **everyone**_ _know?_

Ash, unfazed, swung loose jabs at James's open palms. "You're dancing like a ballerina, twinkle-toes. If you've got something to say, spit it out. Me and the Commander what?"

Shepard stripped off his other arm guard in time to see James return Ashley's friendly jabs with hooks of his own into her palms. "You knew him before all this Reaper shit. Don't tell me he was always the grumpy hard-ass that we see today?"

Shepard frowned, "Charming, Vega. You're down a few points already. Funny how that happens."

"Before all this Reaper shit there was Collector shit and then Saren. Which was also shit. I miss the days when a rogue Spectre and a few geth were our biggest problems." Ash glanced back at Shepard with a knowing smile. Her smile widened as she thought, _That's not the only thing I missed._ Ashley started to step up her attacks to be a little more serious. Hook, block, counter.

"Yea, yea, look at it with rose-tinted glasses all you want, since pretty much nothing is worse than Reapers," James agreed, returning Ashley's punches with blocks from his wrists, then added a few jabs of his own. "But you were original Normandy, Williams. Then dropped on an Alliance colony, then a CO. There's gotta be a good story in the middle of all that."

"Are we playing 20 questions now? Are you gonna ask me about my favorite Blasto vid and if I like long walks on the beach?" Ash deadpanned as she threw a cross and a jab to James's torso.

"Whoa whoa whoa, Lolita. You're not my type," James grinned before grappling Ash into a tight headlock, taking advantage of her shorter height. Unable to break from James's bear hug, Shepard slapped the console to end round one. _One point for Vega._

Rolling her shoulders and bouncing on her toes defensively, Ash tried to recover before pressing at James's left flank. "Thank God, because you're not any woman's type. Unless they like grizzly bears."

"That's just being cruel to grizzly bears, Ash," Shepard supplied. "Plus you don't need a grizzly bear, a knight in shining armor or a man to take care of you, if I remember correctly."

Ash grinned, pleased that Shepard remembered their talks from the Normandy years ago. "Damn straight, Shepard." She jumped back, sidestepping several swift jabs to her abdomen, then closed in with a strong hook to James's chin.

"I'll set up your extranet dating profile the next time we hit a comm buoy, LC. Find you a proper gentleman, no grizzlies allowed. But can't be without proper background. Where'd you go after the SR-1?" James managed to get a wrist up to block the hook in time, though he was starting to sweat.

"After Shepard died—went MIA," she amended with a pause, "I took some personal leave. Stayed with my family on Earth. Just decompressed from all the Citadel stuff. I was pretty messed up for awhile. Kept having bad dreams about Virmire and the Normandy." _And Shepard dying,_ her mind added ruefully. "The navy docs wouldn't clear me for active duty until I got some counseling, which took forever." _I was in a really bad place that I had to claw my way out of,_ she mentally sighed.

"I had no idea, Ash." Shepard finished stowing the rest of his armor and zipped up a blue Alliance shirt. He started rolling up the sleeves above his biceps as he made his way around the console to a comfortable leaning position in front.

"Few did, Shepard," Ash replied softly, then changed the conversation. _Too personal for present company._ "But I wasn't just sitting idly by. Anderson was still looking out for me, and got me into officer training on the base. It took some doing, since they kept 'losing' my paperwork," she gritted her teeth and channeled it into a haymaker to James's jaw. Shepard slapped his hand against the metal of the console. _One point for Williams._

Staggering, James's head snapped back and he stumbled. "Geez, what'd you do, Williams? Kick an admiral's puppy?"

"Another story for another time, LT," Ash sighed, bouncing on her toes as she gave Vega a few seconds to recover. Shepard sighed too, imagining only too well what went on. _They took one look at her last name, did an extranet search, and decided she wasn't worth the Alliance's time. Even after everything Ashley did on the Citadel, she still gets judged by her grandfather and Shanxi._

James rubbed his jaw, then rolled his wrists menacingly. _No more playing around._

Ashley continued, as though they're simply having a drink at a bar and not in the middle of a fistfight. "It took another 4 months for the commission to take, so I was pounding away at paperwork, assessments and sims. They finally finished processing my commission the week after I left Horizon, and were kind enough to throw in a few rank jumps in honor of 'services rendered' on behalf of the Alliance."

"At least you got a piece of the Collectors on Horizon, right? My squad was always one step behind both those bastards **and** Cerberus. It was an all-around shitty year to be colony honorguard," James wheezed out as he let loose a flurry of tight jabs and hooks.

"It was indeed," Ash agreed as she danced tightly around his assault. James had power, but Ash had agility and endurance. "And no, I didn't get a piece of the Collectors. They took half the colony and I barely squeezed off a clip. Shepard did all the work on Horizon. I was frozen in an alley behind some prefabs watching helplessly while those bug-eyed bastards hauled everyone off." A few grunts escaped Ashley's gritted teeth as some of James's blows connected with her muscled abdomen.

"I couldn't have saved anyone without your intervention, Ash. If the Alliance hadn't installed that GARDIAN laser defense, that Collector ship might've taken the entire colony." Shepard hated how professional he sounded, how simply his Commander voice reduced a complex situation to a right-place, right-time scenario.

"We were lucky for that, and for EDI getting it online." A computerized "Thank you, Shepard" popped out of the comm speakers above their heads. EDI was always listening.

Ashley was backed up against the wall of cargo crates, but used the solid surface as momentum to shove Vega back. Even though James was offbalance for only a second, it was enough for the Spectre to break his defense and claim several tight punches to his temples and cheekbones. "I wish… Well, I wish a lot of things. Horizon going differently is at the top of that list."

"Something going on I should know about, Williams?" James huffed out, clearly dazed by the smaller woman's aggressive technique. _Damn, she's good. Damn, my face hurts._ James only dimly heard the slap of Shepard's hand against the console. _Was that another point for her?_

"It wasn't a happy reunion of new and old Normandy crew, Vega. Shepard was surrounded by Cerberus operatives, and we were acting on intelligence that Cerberus was behind all the colony kidnappings."

James put two and two together as he took a moment to shake his head clear. "Ohhhhh …shit. I hope you didn't shoot the Commander."

Lips twitching in a sheepish grin, Ash rubbed some of the pain out of her knuckles. _Vega sure has a hard face._ "No, but I did call him a traitor and accuse him of turning his back on the Alliance."

"Ouch, Lolita."

Defensive hysteria crept into Ash's voice. "I was …angry. Hurt! Two years gone and then he just shows up out of the blue. No contact, no heads-up, no nothing!" She resumed circling James, sizing up their positions in the cargo bay to end the fight for good. She was going to channel two years of heavy emotions into laying out James Vega flat on his face.

Shepard had been quiet this whole time, his hands once again returning to fidget with a shirt zipper. "I… tried, Ash. Cerberus screened all my messages and encrypted everything a dozen times over. Besides, there was just …too much to say in an email or a vid. And we were both off the grid _." God, these sound like excuses. ...They are excuses._

_Did I try? I didn't. I didn't want to._

_I didn't want to know. If she'd moved on. If she hadn't moved on._

_Everyone_ _was telling me over and over how it had been two years. How everything changed while I was gone. Everything except me. …Right? Am I still me? The body isn't quite the same, but …did I get my soul back? Or whatever makes me just Shepard? She's the only one who would know. Who really knew me. I just... didn't want her to look in my eyes and tell me I wasn't me. Because then I would believe it. Then where would I be?_

"I know, Shepard. And I'm sorry for doubting you. You always do the right thing." There was a touch of resentment in her voice. Shepard had been so wrapped up in his thoughts he wasn't watching the fight. James had recovered his balance and was swinging for the fences now. Both marines were fighting for keeps. Ashley channeled her emotions into a tight adrenaline rush of focus while James went for a blunt force knock out.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Shepard's dog mech nearly got punted by James' aggressive footwork in a fight that was reaching a full on brawl. Ashley weaved and dodged in a blur, using her shorter stature to come up under James's deep swings.

"It means that's how I know it's you, Commander. The real you. You always do the right thing, Hero Man. No matter the cost. I just wish…" Ashley trailed off as James dove to grapple her around the shoulders and slammed, palms flat, into the crates. She crouched down tightly under his outstretched arms, then came up swinging from the hips. Her uppercut connected with Vega's hard jaw and snapped his head back, sending him toppling backward.

Shepard jogged over to poke at James's eyelids and check the marine's pulse. Keeping his breathing measured to suppress the alarm, Shepard ran a fingertip over to his Omni-tool to send a message to Dr. Chakwas about her newest patient, then did a scan. _Nothing broken, just out cold._

He turned to look at Ash, who was shaking out her now injured wrist and running a hand over the fresh bruises on her cheekbones. _Better make it two new patients,_ Shepard adjusted on the orange interface. "You just wish what, Ash?"

"I just wish I'd been there with you. That I hadn't wasted my one chance to get another first impression. That I told you right then and there I hadn't forgotten you and I don't want you to forget me. Ever."

"Ash…" Shepard was at a loss for words. He hadn't expected that. _I don't think she did, either._ His eyes followed Ashley helplessly as she grabbed a towel to dab at the wet stains under her arms and at her back, then strode nonchalantly to the elevator. Her long hair had partially escaped the confines of the bun. Her long wet bangs waved back and forth in the breeze of her exerted breathing.

"When Vega wakes up, tell him I want a piercing mod and the newest extended barrel upgrade from Cipritine Armory on my assault rifle."


	3. Another Lesson in Mourning: Cargo Hold B

_I can't do this. I can't do this. I can't do this._ Ashley's mind started changing the emphasis on words since the phrase was becoming meaningless. _I_ _ **can't**_ _do this. I can't_ _ **do**_ _this. I can't do_ _ **this**_ _._

She'd been lurking in the batarian area of Cargo Hold B for half an hour now. A batarian preacher standing on a box had taken to shouting directly at her, waving his Hegemony propaganda datapad animatedly. Ashley was too focused on flicking her eyes between the entrance and the memorial wall to notice.

_Where is he? He said he'd be here. I can't do this._

Almost on cue, Commander Shepard appeared through the glowing security curtain at the entrance. Under his arm was a medium-sized metal case bearing the bold lines of the Kassa Fabrication logo. _Did he go shopping? At a time like this? …Calm down, you weren't specific in your email on what time to meet._

Shepard paused in the middle of the hallway, setting his purchase down against the guardrail dividing the crowded space. Bright orange sprang to life on his left wrist as he activated his Omni-tool messages interface. Ashley was halfway up the gangplank when her wrist glowed in response.

_[16:02:53, SHEPARD, J. — present & accounted for, ash. where r u?]_

A faint smile tugged at her mouth over Shepard's terrible shorthand as she sidestepped around a bewildered salarian and asari couple that stopped in front her.

"Shepard! Thanks for coming." Ashley came to a stop next to Shepard, who had turned at the sound of her voice. His eyes crinkled in a warm smile, instantly evaporating her irrational annoyance at his tardiness.

"I wanted to be here for **you** , Ash." He savored the word and reached out to hold her hands. The gesture doesn't quite pass as mere friendship. The distance between them was a little too close and their eyes lingered a little too long, but Ash didn't care. He's here.

It took a great deal of willpower to pull away, but Ashley turned to lean exhaustedly over the railing. She couldn't help wringing her hands at the sight of a young brunette woman who stood in front of the memorial wall.

Trinkets, datapads and image screens were tacked up all along the wall. Faces of children, siblings, parents and friends stared back as they waited to be found on some distant world. A revolving door of people milled around the wall, some stopping to pray to their gods for guidance while others touched the images in reverence. Standing in front of a short row of chairs, Sarah Williams-Palmer uncertainly stroked a datapad that showed her in a beautiful white dress next to a tall, red-haired man wearing Alliance dress blues.

"It's tough to see her go through this." Ash's hair slips over eyes when her voice cracked. "Damn it, there I go again." Though Sarah had arrived at the wall ten minutes ago, it still wasn't any easier... to bear _or_ think of something good to say.

"I hope Sarah can find some peace here," Shepard said lamely. There were never words good enough for pain like this. He doesn't know her. He wish he did. The only memories he has of Ashley's sisters were voices from eavesdropping on her vid-mails. He remembered Sarah's voice as bubbly and upbeat, especially during a sign-off where she mentioned he was "cute." _And at the time, I had hoped all the Williams women shared that sentiment._ The girl (woman?) holding her face in her hands looked neither bubbly nor upbeat.

"I'm glad I can be here for her," Ashley murmured as a dull heaviness crept over her chest, making it difficult to breathe or swallow. It was a weight that had snowballed over the years as it caught and carried all of Ash's fears and loss. Her father was in there. Granddad. The silent Alliance blacklist. The 212 at Eden Prime. Kaidan. Even Shepard, though he was back from the dead, had been added to her burden in the form of guilt and betrayal.

She shook her head. _This is about Sarah. Shepard and I… we have more time._ A dim whisper followed up her train of thought with _"…Don't we?"_ but Ash pushed it away. Her deep brown eyes finally had the courage to raise up off the floor and focus back on her little sister only six meters away.

"She wanted me to say something about our family. Wanted Thomas to hear it." Shepard was silent, though his hand crept up to her forearm in reassurance. His mind had wandered, somewhat selfishly, to his own memorial that he had, ironically, erected himself on Alchera only a scant distance from where his body had nearly burned up in the atmosphere.

Death had become a complicated issue for Shepard, one he tried to avoid thinking about. His dinner months ago with Kelly Chambers, Cerberus yeomen and staff psychologist, had been an existential discussion resulting in more questions than answers for the walking contradiction of a Commander. Questions he could not bring to ask himself, let alone be asked by someone as religious as Ash. He did not have time to worry about his own soul, _or if I even still have one_. His dreams of late were tumultuous enough.

He had actually found solace in Ash's sappy poets over many an extranet search during long sleepless nights aboard the SR-2. _And having her picture in my cabin hadn't hurt either._ Shepard blinked himself back to reality and looked over to see Ashley similarly deep in thought. Wanting to break the awkward quiet, he squeezed her forearm and recited:

"The wish, that of the living whole  
No life may fail beyond the grave,  
Derives it not from what we have  
The likest God within the soul?

Are God and Nature then at strife,  
That Nature lends such evil dreams?  
So careful of the type she seems,  
So careless of the single life"

Ash's head jerked up in surprise as a pleased smile traced its way up her cheeks. _Tennyson, In Memoriam A.H.H.,_ her mind mechanically recalled as a student's would a history fact. For some reason, Ash couldn't stop looking at Shepard's lips as she continued the poem:

"That I, considering everywhere  
Her secret meaning in her deeds,  
And finding that of fifty seeds  
She often brings but one to bear,

I falter where I firmly trod,  
And falling with my weight of cares  
Upon the great world's altar-stairs  
That slope thro' darkness up to God"

"It's about… how hard it is to pull yourself out of grief, right?" Shepard offered. He could memorize words as easily as a building schematic, but unlike battle strategy, Ashley's poetry didn't always click with meaning. He had to rely on her for understanding. _For so many things,_ his mind added wistfully.

Ashley nodded and turned back to her sister's hunched back. "You'll get through this," he said as his hand found its place atop hers that was still gripped to the railing. Shepard then reluctantly switched to Commander mode. "You need to be strong for Sarah now."

"You're right." Ash needed to hear that. _He's right, I need to buck up._ "I'm just so proud of her. She's no career soldier. But there she is, coping with all of this."

He remained silent as she continued, "Reminds me of Dad. Whatever was going on, he'd put a smile on his face for us."

"Your family made you what you are." Ash nodded, appreciating his kindness, "I know. This just makes me miss Dad more. He'd know what to say."

She continued musing about her father while Shepard patiently listened. He could relate. Grief wasn't a one and done thing. It stayed behind as a dark passenger, eager to reappear with each fresh bout then hatefully multiply. Shepard had his own dark passengers. Jenkins. Kaidan. Pressly. That boy on Earth. Thane. Mordin. And that was just the short list. The full list was too numerous to name. Or bear. Squads. Ships. Entire planets. Entire civilizations.

Shepard shook his head, always trying to clear the painful numbers that so desperately wanted to overwhelm his cool logic. _I promised to be here for Ashley._

_…Ashley…_

He was suddenly humbled. _Was Ash here, two years ago? Did her sisters wait for her on the Citadel like this? Did she tell them about us and allow them to comfort and console her while she cried for me? She said that she needed counseling and time off. If it had been me… If she had suddenly reappeared from the dead with a handsome XO in tow and Cerberus orange painted on her ship, would I have been understanding? Would it be easy to let go of years of pain on top of months of misunderstanding?_

Shepard instantly sobered just as Ash wrapped up her trip down memory lane. He squeezed her hand once before encouraging her to go.

"You sister's waiting. You'll be fine. I'll be here if you need me."

"Right. Here I go."

Shepard watched Ash's slow gait, carefully observing the uncertain hunch ease from her shoulders as she approached her sister. By the time she had placed an arm around Sarah's shoulders, Ashley look positively confident. He stood at the railing for several minutes, unable to hear what the two sisters talked about but unwilling to leave.

He finally saw his cue in the form of a grateful smile from Ashley, which he gladly returned. Content that he'd fulfilled the least of his obligations as a (friend? Boyfriend? Commander?) human being, he turned to leave. Motion from Sarah caught his eye as the younger Williams gave him a hard, appraising stare.

Shepard froze under her scrutiny. Sarah Williams-Palmer was shorter, thinner and a sharp contrast to big sis. Her eyes were puffy and red with tears, and instead of a deep brown there was a brighter hazel hue. Her hair shared Ashley's dark brown, but was rebelliously curly as it framed a pale complexion and simple features along with the trademark full lips. After a few long seconds, Sarah gave him a curt nod (of approval?) and turned back to the memorial wall with Ashley.

Wondering if he passed some sort of test, Shepard leaned down to scoop up his package and trace his fingers over the Kassa Fabrication insignia. The weapon within, an M-76 Revenant, was his peace offering to the Lieutenant Commander.

He was looking forward to stowing it in her weapon locker, and knew just the message to send along with it:

"I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,  
And gather dust and chaff, and call  
To what I feel is Lord of all,  
And faintly trust the larger hope.

I'm here for you, Ash. Always.  
-Shepard"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In Memoriam A.H.H. is by Alfred Tennyson


	4. Reconcilable Differences: Crew Deck

_Izz… Izz fine… I.. 'm juzt fiiine…_

A caustic burp died in Ashley Williams' throat, forcing her to amend her blurry thought.

_S'okay… I miiiiight be jus' a lil' drunk. Juzt a lil'!_

_There. I sssaid it... You happy, Brain?_

"I'm not sssayin' this out loud, 'm I?" _Wait, di' I say_ _ **that**_ _ou'loud? …Izz hard t' keep track._

Internal arguments aside, Ashley did not reach this sorry state without help. In fact, she'd been having debates with herself all day without bringing her old friend alcohol into the mix.

Commander Shepard, Garrus and Tali'Zorah ( _vas Normandy_ , a jealous whisper added) had been planetside on Rannoch, helping the quarians with their final push against the Reaper-controlled geth. Lieutenant Commander Ashley Williams and her new M-76 Revenant assault rifle (nicknamed Ulysses) were sitting this one out, but still at the ready in case the Normandy needed to swoop in for assistance.

It was strange to be XO in Shepard's absence (and even stranger to not be at his side when geth needed shooting), but Ashley was diligent in following her Commander's lead. Shuttle Bay. Engineering. Crew deck. CIC. War room. She had traced a well-worn path up and down the Normandy elevator to request status updates. It made her feel less useless, and barking orders did feel pretty good. _I can see why Shepard likes being in charge._

"Relax, Williams. This isn't Shepard's first rodeo," Joker snapped when Ash popped up at his elbow yet again asking for sitrep to feed to the quarian fleet.

"There's no business-as-usual when dealing with geth, _Lieutenant_ ," Ashley stressed the chain of command, which rewarded her with an eyeroll and curt nod from Joker. "Plus the quarians have already fired on one ship with our people on it. I'm not giving them another opportunity to screw us over. We need to keep an eye on them as much as the geth."

"That is highly unlikely, Lieutenant Commander Williams," a cool female voice echoed around her, though Ash still turned to the physical source. EDI's head turned to face Ashley while her mech body unnaturally continued to swipe at her console to correct the Normandy's flight path.

"My data shows 92.4% of the quarian fleet is engaged in geth hostilities in Rannoch's ionosphere. The chances of any force breaking off to attempt bombardment where Shepard is currently located are remote, especially with the Reaper base defenses still up."

Ash had to suppress a hard swallow making eye contact with EDI, for she still remembered those silver eyes glaring with cruelty as that mech slammed her head again and again into that ship wreckage. Instead, Ashley nodded in acknowledgement but stressed "It never hurts to be prepared …EDI."

"Understood, Lieutenant Commander. I shall maintain hemispheric proximity to Shepard in case our presence is needed, either for evacuation or offensive capabilities."

"Geez, Mom. I think we can cut the umbilical cord to Shepard and company. He's a big boy with his big boy pants and everything," Joker cracked sardonically, while EDI hummed a question regarding how Shepard's pants size related to his capabilities, before trailing off in understanding, "Oh. That was a joke."

"We're **not** leaving Shepard again," spilled out of Ash's mouth before she got a chance to mentally filter how it would sound in present company. Joker spun in his pilot's chair, his fists clenched in rage. His mouth opened and closed several times, but a witty remark wouldn't come. Instead, his forehead creased in guilt and his face burned bright red as he turned back to his console.

Ashley exhaled as she mentally slapped her forehead. _Nice going, LC. Way to foster leadership and togetherness by accusing Joker of killing Shepard. I'm sure he's_ _ **never**_ _thought about that day,_ her mind railed sarcastically. _Apologize already, for God's sake. He deserves that._

She stepped up and put a hand on Joker's shoulder, which he shook off. "Look, I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. It wasn't your fault, Joker." He muttered a clipped "Yeahright" under his breath and continued swiping and tapping at the bright orange interfaces to adjust the Normandy's instruments with careful precision.

"No, I mean it. The Reapers took Shepard and the SR-1 from us, and there wasn't jack shit anyone could do about it. We're here now, and we're gonna make those bastards pay for every second we lost when we should have been preparing. And we couldn't do that without you, **Lieutenant**." Ash emphasized Joker's title this time with respect.

It was several long seconds before Joker nodded in acknowledgement and the color faded from his complexion. "Forget it, LC. And go bother someone else about your sitreps. I have a ship to fly." Ash accepted his dismissal with good humor and a sigh of relief. _Crisis averted._

"I will have all engineers and operatives submit up-to-the-minute tactical reports through Specialist Traynor to filter to the quarian admirals, Miss Williams," EDI chimed in, eager to be of assistance. Ashley nodded in gratitude and scratched the cockpit and CIC off her mental checklist of subordinates to keep in line.

Ensigns jumped out of the way to look busy as Ashley strode purposefully through the CIC, shaking her head. _Never thought I'd be working with an AI, especially an AI living in a body that almost killed me. But Shepard sure has that effect on people. He certainly changed my perspective on the whole alien cooperation thing._

_Maybe they aren't just looking to sic humans (or krogan) on their problems or leave us all to die. Hell, even I've had krogan, turians, quarians and asari watching my back, and it turned out all right._

_…asari…_

Ashley made a beeline once more to the elevator and forcefully pressed the bright orange number 3. There was one more alien ( _person!_ ) she needed to speak to, since she was in such a reconciliatory mood.

Standing outside Liara's cabin, Ashley had only a second to compose herself before Glyph droned over the door comm, "May I be of assistance, Lieutenant Commander Williams?"

"Permission to enter to speak with Liara T'Soni."

The doors whooshed open to reveal Liara standing in front of her tower of a console, her coat bouncing around her hips in agitation as her attention shifted from screen to screen to datapad to screen again. _God, does she ever sleep?_ Ash wondered as she spied the bed at the end of the room being used as more datapad storage.

"Ashley, it's good to see you," Liara pattered on absently as she typed away at her console. It was hard to tell if she was being sincere or not, but Ash decided to err on the side of optimism. Satisfied with whatever she was working on, Liara sat exhaustedly back in her seldom-used chair and turned to face Ashley.

"What can I do for you?"

Ash rubbed her forearm nervously, a bit ashamed of what she was about to request. _Best to get straight to the point._ "Since you're now, uh, more _information savvy_ , shall we say?" Liara's cheek twitched in a faint smile at the roundabout way of saying _Since you're now the Shadow Broker…_

"Do you have vids and reports Cerberus compiled about the SR-2 during the whole Collectors business?" She felt herself guiltily adding, "I just want to get a better feel for how Cerberus operated." _You're adding too much information. Just shut up, already!_

Liara's face remained impassive as she softly replied, "I see." _I bet you do. Except I rrrrreally hope you don't._

"The Illusive Man kept an extensive network of bugs, cameras and embedded encryptions on the Normandy SR-2 during the duration of Shepard's… shall we say… brief tenure? The previous Shadow Broker had tapped into a majority of the feeds and message pipelines to intercept a great deal of information. Is there something specific I can have Glyph find for you?" To Liara's credit, she accepted Ashley's unorthodox request and terrible timing with grace.

"As much as you can give me on conversations directly with The Illusive Man between Shepard, Lawson, or any of the other crew… Details regarding how Cerberus seeded classified information to the Normandy… and..." Ash swallowed uncertainly, "Vids of Shepard's behavior, especially crew interactions."

"I see," Liara thoughtfully replied again, her face masking any reaction she might have to Ash's intentions. All business, Liara beckoned to Glyph and activated her Omni-tool. The glowing tech drone's interface revolved and spun as it wirelessly probed the Shadow Broker servers for the requested information. Ashley was doing her best not to stand there with her mouth agape. _That's it? No questioning my motives? No asking for an explanation?_

Her response was a ping on her Omni-tool. Ashley raised her wrist to see a single line of code. "Download received." She turned to thank Liara, but the asari had already turned back to her console.

Liara's voice was light and airy, as though she were commenting on the weather. "Glyph has sent a packet of the information you requested to browse at your convenience." She paused before thoughtfully adding, "I know how it feels to be helpless when someone needed you most. I hope you find what you seek, Ashley. And …he is worth the wait." _Crap. ...Wait, what? Worth the wait?_

Ashley eyed the exit hungrily, wanting nothing more than to disappear into her room and pore over the vids and reports ( _after Shepard returns from Rannoch, of course_ ) but wanted to clear the air with Liara. _I owe her so much, and I've never told her so._

"I just wanted to... I know we've..." The sentences just would not form. It was a torrent of emotions that required an eloquent speaker, and Ashley didn't qualify. She tried again, "I'm sorry about..."

The asari rotated in her seat, looking tired but curious. There was always a softness to her, a patience that Ash had once attributed as having an air of superiority. But after all Liara had done... For Shepard. For the Normandy. _For me._ Ash simply would not put effort into resenting Liara anymore for What Might Have Been years ago. Desperate to say something, _anything_ , Ash blurted out the only poetry verse that popped into her head that sounded remotely apologetic.

"The pride I trampled is now my scathe,  
For it tramples me again.  
The old resentment lasts like death,  
For you love, yet you refrain.  
I break my heart on your hard unfaith,  
And I break my heart in vain."

"That was …beautiful, Ashley," Liara said uncertainly. She seemed to be chewing over the rhyme, scanning it for sarcasm or insult. Ash stepped forward to speak again, but instead settled for putting one hand on Liara's right shoulder, then clasping the doctor's wrist with her other hand.

" **Thank you** , Liara." Liara's eyes crinkled in a restrained smile, and she nodded back.

"If you ever need **anything**. I will always have your back, T'Soni."

"And I yours, Williams."

* * *

Hours later, the Normandy was rocking with celebration. Excited engineers and ensigns recounted how terrifying it had been skirting along the Rannoch canyon floor as the Normandy bucked to dodge Reaper cannon fire. The crew gathered into clusters, drinks in hand, toasting Joker and Shepard and Tali and EDI and the geth and anyone who stepped off the elevator.

Ashley started drinking with James early, enjoying a robust camaraderie since their shuttle bay brawl. They both bragged heroically about how many geth they would have taken down if they'd been planetside, while Garrus slurred about quality over quantity.

It was dizzying every time they just said it out loud: the quarians have a homeworld **and** peace with the geth. Commander Shepard ended a 300-year war by yelling. It wasn't a story, it was a damn **legend** , and they all got to see it happen.

Shepard made an appearance in the Port Observation Deck to join Ash, James, Garrus and Cortez, but retired early after muttering about not sleeping much lately. They only mocked him for a few minutes after he left out of respect, before switching back to their banter over how their contributions needed to be worked into the legend.

Ash had a more seasoned liver after a two year mourning period, so she was the last to remain conscious as Garrus stumbled off to the Main Battery and Vega simply slumped over the Skyllian Five table, snoring away. Cortez had blearily fallen into a sleeper pod before even Shepard had departed. _Lightweights,_ Ash grinned sloppily.

Not wanting Vega's smuggled bottle of triple distilled tequila to go to waste, Ash swiped it and ambled across the hall to her makeshift quarters in the Starboard Observation Deck. She took a few hearty swigs as she collapsed on her couch in front of the window, sputtering as the alcohol burned its way down her throat to settle into the growing warm spot in her belly.

The view was incredible, as the Normandy was in geosynchronous orbit above the newly liberated Rannoch. White clouds swirled above light purple-blue oceans that were dotted with dark brown landmasses. Ashley's drunk brain tried to guess the names of distant landmarks, which quickly devolved into her attempting the quarian accent with disastrous results.

She giggled uncontrollably as she activated her Omni-tool to get a quarian language primer, but the flashing DOWNLOAD RECEIVED on the lower corner of the interface was briefly sobering. _Oh yea, the SR-2 thingies._

Tapping the icon, a spreadsheet of video logs appeared. Glyph had courteously organized them per her request. "Subject: Information protocols" followed by "Crew, Illusive Man Interactions With" both had metadata tags indicating names of crewmembers and topics of conversation next to timestamps. The third folder, "Video Logs re: Shepard, J" had two subsections.

The first, aptly titled "Shepard in charge," seemed to be a compilation of Shepard's greatest hits. Ashley started taking shots of tequila every time Shepard said "I have to go" and snorted with laughter during his rousing speeches or threatened a mercenary bodily harm. _The Commander always did have a way with words._

The second section was simply labeled "Check these out, -L." While her throat was still thick from the booze and her vision started to get a trifle blurry, the crewmembers tagged in the video log sobered Ash some. Miranda Lawson. Kelly Chambers. Samara. Tali'Zorah nar Rayya vas Normandy (jar Rannoch). Jennifer Dexter (alias Jack, alias Subject Zero). Kasumi Goto.

All women. Granted, it was exactly what Ash had been pettily curious about, but she hated knowing Liara _also_ was aware that she was just that petty. A dull, sensible part of Ashley's brain protested the existence of this log of vids, that it was a betrayal to Shepard, that she was above this… _Blah blah blah…_

Pounding back a deep swig of the burning tequila, Ash steeled herself and picked a crew member at random. _Kasumi Goto._

A grainy video appeared of the Port Observation Deck she had just left a few moments ( _wait, what time is it? A few hours?_ ) ago, though this version seemed to be decorated in singular comforts while the new deck was more of a group lounge. Ash had to blink multiple times to realize how innocuous the vid was. Kasumi and Shepard had an easy banter over the course of the Collector mission, despite their very disparate backgrounds.

_Hehe, "Shep." I'll have to remember that._

Ash almost felt like Liara had tricked her with this collection of vids, but then again she did deserve to be messed with.

_You_ _ **are**_ _basically spying on Shepard to see if he slept around, especially after you called him a traitor on Horizon and walked away. Did you think an email would make that better?_ her mind droned cruelly. _Shut up, brain. I just… I need to know. I have to believe he's still …mine._

Hot guilty tears stabbed at Ash's eyes, which she drank away with several deep swallows of alcohol. "Kelly Chambers" was surprisingly likeable given Ash's disdain for therapists. The redhead, though annoyingly flirty with the Commander, was earnest and genuine. Skimming through a vid recording of Shepard's cabin where the two apparently shared a dinner, Ash was relieved that their conversation had been full of jokes and life but the evening came to a mutually lonely end.

Ashley found herself deliberately avoiding the section for Miranda Lawson, for the former XO operative set her teeth to grinding. The lazy air of smugness, the form-fitting uniform, the level of intimacy which Miranda had as Shepard's rebuilder… All those qualities made Ash feel insecure and small, like a plain girl being unfairly compared to the popular beauty queen in high school. Miranda could have been a saint, but her very existence spelled Threat.

She finally bit the bullet (and another swig of tequila) to investigate Miranda's conversations with Shepard. Blessedly tame. There were some veiled flirtations from Lawson, but Shepard either didn't pick up on them, or want to ruin a professional relationship. Ash did spend the full 47 minutes and 33 seconds carefully (or drunkenly) checking the footage. But the only real shift in behavior was a grateful melting of ice on Miranda's part.

Tali'Zorah's addition to the log was intriguing, and Ash had been more than a little surprised to witness just how infatuated the quarian had been with Commander Shepard. _Sure, I'd picked up on a little crush back on the SR-1. But damn._ Reaching for a bottle that had become exceedingly light, Ash blinked through several awkward exchanges of Tali hinting at her feelings while Shepard got distracted by a comm message or simply didn't register. _Is he just oblivious or tryin' t' not hurt her feelings?_

Despite a brief flash of arrogance over why Shepard would choose the quarian, Tali's overwhelming good qualities paraded through Ashley's mind. _She was sweet. Kind. Brilliant. Amazing curves. And loyal._ That was the kicker that nearly liberated all the tequila in Ash's gut. Tali was there for Shepard. She dropped everything to follow him into hell. _She was Vas Normandy while I was Vas Cowardice._

_...Boyyyy, this surrre is takin' forever,_ Ash's mind slurred as it grew harder and harder to stay propped up on the couch. She had slid down so far on the couch that her legs stuck straight out and her shoulders were wedged awkwardly at the base of the seat.

_Man, my back hurts. And izz hard to keep ma arm propped up t' watch these. What if I juzt…_ Ash couldn't continue the thought as she rolled over and faceplanted on the metal floor. _Ooof!_

_Izz… Izz fine… I.. 'm juzt fiiine…_

* * *

"Vega's got some eggs ready for you…" Upon seeing the sorry state the Lieutenant Commander was in, Shepard trailed off with an amused "Oh."

Ash was only dully aware that the door to her makeshift quarters had opened, but the blackness that had descended on her eyelids would not be lifted. A plaintive groan was all she could muster in response.

"What have we here?" _God, his voice is so loud. How did I never notice how booming the Commander's voice was?_ " **Sir** , I'm off duty," Ashley murmured as she hugged her arms more tightly to her chest.

"Your voice, **sir**. Not so loudpleasethankyou." The soldier part of her brain was still awake in the presence of a superior office at least. Her respectful "sirs" only lacked a crisp salute, which her arms were unwilling to offer.

"I'm thinking a 'no' on the eggs, then?"

Her stomach flipped just at the thought of food, causing another groan to escape her lips. _Did he just ask me why I'm curled up on the floor?_ _Am I?_ "My head… so heavy… can't move."

"How **did** you get in this sorry state?" Shepard asked, amusement evident in his tone. _Oh God, I can't deal with 20 questions right now_ was quickly drowned out by her soldier instinct which demanded _You will reply properly to your CO_.

"Just… wanted to let off some steam? Vega said he had 'just the thing' to take my mind off stuff." _"Stuff" like you, Commander. …What, not a proper reply, Brain?_

"And did that 'thing' come in a bottle?"

"…Yes."

There was a pause, then "This empty bottle?" _It's empty? …Oh boy… Wait, did I say that part or just think it? …Are we back to this_ _ **again**_ _, Brain?_

"I'll be back to work in 30… maybe 40… I swear. Just… give me 45 minutes." Ash's voice trailed off, shushing him like a mother would a fussy child.

"You know, I think it might be time to test the fire alarm." _It's too early (late?) for sarcasm_ , she growled bitterly inside as she refused to open her eyes and see that smug, sexy smirk.

"I will pay you a million credits not to do that, **sir** ," Ashley begged as her mind added, _Please, just let me have my cold floor._

"Two million, and you've got yourself a deal." _HE'S STILL TALKING. GOD._ "You're a damn space pirate."

Shepard grinned back, refusing to let her get off so easy. He leaned forward playfully, jutting his lower lip out to make his voice drip with insincere sympathy, "I could order Joker to sing to you over the comm."

"Ihateyou." One terse word. Ash's eyes cracked open in a hateful glare. He stifled a laugh before twisting the knife one last time. He put a hand to his ear and leaned further down, asking sarcastically, "'I hate you'….?"

" _ **Sir.**_ "

The laugh he'd been containing finally burst from his lips as he finally decided to let her be. "As you were, Williams."

Ash murmured in appreciation, both of the cold floor pressed against her cheek and the silence that Shepard's leaving ( _finally!_ ) would offer. She was fast asleep in seconds, her lips smacking quietly in appreciation.

Shepard turned to leave. Even made it out into the hallway but was still too close for the motion sensor to shut off and close the doors. But he couldn't just leave her there.

Even curled up in a heap on a floor, looking like shit, she was still somehow _Ashley_. And Shepard missed this, this Thing they once had, not constantly chaperoned by their titles or protocol. He missed _her_. The business side was still there, his fellow soldier and lieutenant who unapologetically evaluated his decisions and pushed him. Harder. Faster. Better.

But this was one of the few times that the old Gunnery Chief had made an appearance, that mouthy, strong-willed subordinate who broke rules (for all the right reasons, of course) and dared him to blink first. He missed that challenge, that thrill. It was comfort in the familiar offset by a little danger.

Shepard quietly padded over to Ash's still form on the floor then crouched down to place a tentative hand on her shoulder. She inhaled deeply, but did not stir. He exerted pressure on the shoulder to shift Ash over to her back, then jostled her lightly to slip both forearms under her back and knees, respectively. In one smooth motion, the Commander cradled Ash to his chest and held his breath. Nothing. It was only six quick footsteps to the nearest couch.

Just as Shepard leaned over to set her down, her hand resting against her abdomen slipped to his shirt and gripped the fabric tightly. She sighed languidly while Shepard's pulse quickened. He regretfully peeled her gloved fingers off and placed that hand with the other on her stomach. He relished draping a soft wool blanket and tucking it around her curves.

Still unwilling to leave just yet, Shepard sat lightly on the edge of Ash's new bed. He was fascinated by her long, undone hair splayed around her head, but settled for running a gentle thumb across her cheeks and over her full lips. He held his breath once more, but Ashley didn't spring awake. Neither in outrage at being awoken nor to peel him out of his uniform in a hormone-fueled frenzy.

His head bent down of its own accord, longing to taste what his thumb had explored, but Shepard settled on a whisper.

"We'll talk later, Williams." _We have a lot to talk about ...Ash_.

Ash's dark eye cracked opened two and a half seconds later, rewarding her with a glimpse Shepard's backside tiptoeing away. A smile curled her lips as she rolled over to her side, tightening the blanket around her chest.

"Looking forward to it… Skipper."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Verse from To W.A. by William Ernest Henley
> 
> Dexter is a made-up last name for Jack, since Liara never really says.


	5. Rekindled: Presidium Commons

Leaning lazily back in the low chair on the upper balcony of the Presidium Commons, Ashley swirled her cup of coffee absently with one hand. She had found this charming café during a Spectre assessment after the Cerberus coup, and she and her sister had relished exploring the menu for little tastes of home. While Sarah had brightened upon finding an alien equivalent for tea, Ashley had been more fascinated by the salarian employee peddling "Authentic Earth Coffee!"

It had been an impressive, if bold-faced, lie for the "coffee" was flavored powder mixed with a salarian floral garnish, but with enough (powdered) cream and sugar it provided a decent caffeine jolt. A drained cup of tea sat in front of the empty chair next to Ash, for Little Sis had retired to her room early. _Still exhausted from the war and mourning Thomas. Poor kid. …She's tough, she'll get back on her feet.  
_  
Ashley had been nervously turning her left wrist, worried about missing the trademark _ping!_ of a message received on her Omni-tool. Her attention was divided between the quiet view, her wrist, and listening for Shepard who was only slightly overdue to meet her here. But it gave her time to think.

After the incident with the tequila, Ash was laying low during off-hours on the ship. Because there was still the matter of being in possession of a packet of vids featuring Commander Shepard having private conversations with the lovely ladies of the Cerberus-sponsored Normandy SR-2. A normal, mature adult would chalk it up to just a desperate, drunken curiosity and move on.

Ash admitted she was not a normal, mature adult.

But poring over those vids sober was a whole 'nother ballgame, because that devil on her shoulder had been flushed down the toilet along with half a bottle of tequila. Now she had the decency to feel ashamed for snooping, but not enough to stop doing it.

The second time around (in the privacy of the women's bathrooms, no less), there was greater hesitancy at digging through the rest of those conversations. Because the whole time, Ashley was praying for… _what?_

_That Shepard was miserable without me? That's stupid. And terrible. That he would valiantly proclaim that he was taken? Oh, he sure wasn't, especially after my awesome rant on Horizon. Wanting a little R &R in someone's bed… I couldn't blame the guy. ...Except I would._

_Hell, it might even be easier if he had. Because then I could have walked away with a relatively clear conscience. And a whole lot of hurt. That I'd gotten used to, after two years. But now I'm left with these little needles of hope that I don't know what to do with._

Ash had finally psyched herself up enough to take a look at the last few entries: Samara, Jack, and an unnamed entry only tagged "View this last, -L." _What is Liara up to with all this?_ Ashley's inherent distrust of the doctor had faded, though there seemed to be a devious pattern to the way these vids were organized. _I would say this is all a big joke, but Liara never had much of a sense of humor. Maybe she_ _ **has**_ _changed._

_Samara_. Ash had been impressed by the asari Justicar on Lesuss. Formidable. Thorough. Honorable. It had seemed cruel to round up genetically defective asari into what amounted to futuristic (but somehow medieval) concentration camps. _I'm sorry, "monasteries."_ _And having 3 children, all of them exiled? Raising a family is hard enough._

But Ashley was relieved when Shepard intervened. To save the last Ardat-Yakshi from a horrible Reaper undeath. To stay Samara's hand from killing herself. To help the asari people, who always seemed so above the petty problems of a galaxy at war. _And I mean that in a good way… now, anyway._

She was unsurprised to see that Samara and Shepard discussed morals and ethics at length. Samara had a patient, soothing voice but was sharp and blunt. _I like her._

Jack, however, was not as likeable. Powerful. Hostile. Unpredictable. The biotic on the vids was thankfully only a shadow of the one Ashley had heard about at Grissom Academy. This Jack briefly threw herself at Shepard to get any sexual tension out of the way, and when he didn't bite they eventually talked their way into some deep insights on Jack's behavior, perhaps even something akin to friendship. But again, yet another opportunity for Shepard to let his hormones do the talking and yet he refrained. _Why?_

"View this last, -L." Ash was actually dutiful in following Liara's advice. _Okay, T'Soni. What is this all about? I see… Shepard. In his cabin. Very exciting. Okay, so EDI is counting down the jump to the Omega-4 Relay. …hmm…. This is a little too close to Ilos; dire straights, last chance for happiness before jumping into the unknown…_ _Shepard pacing his cabin. He never could sleep, even when he told us to. "Do as I say, not as I do," huh?_

_…what is he looking at on his desk? He keeps going back to it. And now he's holding something. I've been to the Captain's cabin, it doesn't look any different; fish, models of ships, that low desk… What is that? A picture? Is that… …me?_

Ashley shook her head to clear the memory. The announcement of 3 days' leave on the Citadel had been enough to pull Ashley out of her blackhole of guilt, even after she'd deleted the entire packet of vids.

The second the ship had docked, Ash put in notice to go see Sarah on the Presidium. She needed someone to talk to, who understood her history. Sarah was only set to stay on the Citadel for another week before joining the Williams family on a cruiser to an untouched human colony out in the Terminus systems. The youngest Williams sister had been Ash's confidant after the SR-1 was destroyed, her tether to sanity. And it had been Sarah who'd convinced Ashley to take the first step.

She'd been a nervous wreck just writing out a casual, airy correspondence to Shepard a few days ago. Every sentence was dissected for meaning or possible interpretation of subtext. And now, here Ashley was, waiting for her labors to pay off.

* * *

Shepard tapped his foot impatiently in the elevator. His meeting with Councilor Tevos had run long, and he was yet again shouldering the troubles of the galactic community at large. It was the asari's turn now. He tried to shake the feeling of always being one step behind the goddamn Reapers, but the victories at Tuchanka and Rannoch were encouraging. _We can win this. We have to._

Her message to him came back in a flash, for he had read it so many times the after-image was burned into the backs of his eyelids. _Goddammit, this elevator needs to go faster.  
_

* * *

MESSAGE RECEIVED:

DATE: 08:52:12 AM, 22/09/2185  
TO: Shepard, J.  
FROM: Williams, A.  
SUBJECT: A little downtime

Shepard,  
This may be a dumb idea, but... I heard you were having some trouble sleeping. Don't freak out! Word gets around. Anyway, I was thinking it would be nice for us to get together, just the two of us. Find a quiet spot on the Citadel, or try to at least. We could both probably use the downtime.

The NavPoint's incoming if you'd like to join me.

Ash

* * *

The low roar of the still-busy shops and kiosks around the Commons masked Shepard's approaching footsteps. He had already broken into a wide grin, seeing Ashley's unique profile from the upper stairwell leading down to the café, and paused at her elbow to take in the sight.

"This is a nice spot, Ash," he said lightly, deciding against apologizing for being late. She set down her cup, then made an exaggerated scan of the view.

"Yeah. All the shuttles zipping around remind me of when my Dad would get ready to ship out."

Shepard had a brief pang of nostalgia for his own adulthood after enlisting into the Alliance. _Reminds me of Arcturus Station, actually._ Ash continued, "My mom would bundle us all up, buy us ice cream, and cart us out to the shipyard to watch his transport depart. I still have to resist waving every time a big Alliance ship flies by."

Shepard suppressed a laugh at a mental image of Little Ashley in pigtails waving wildly at a departing ship, then gestured at the empty cup at the table and softly asked, "Sarah's?" At Ash's nod, he wondered, "How's she doing?"

"As good as you'd expect. I set her up in a hotel room to wait for mom and my sisters to arrive next week. She likes the quiet here, the trees, the shops. She wasn't the loud tomboy crashing around like I was."

A short laugh exploded from Shepard when he pictured Little Ash covered in mud in the middle of a fistfight with some neighbor boy who probably mouthed off. He bet that little girl whipped that kid's ass just as easily as Big Ash did James Vega. "Sounds like you were a handful."

"Maybe," Ash smirked. "My dad got me. Shame you never met him." Her dark eyes were hooded with longing, though for whom Shepard wasn't sure. "He would have liked you."

He tilted his head and clasped his hands at the small table, suddenly struck with a brief insecurity. _Over a man I never met._ "…you think so?"

"Career military man?" Ash snorted in disbelief and beckoned Shepard to join her at the balcony to get a closer look at the ships. She surveyed the ship traffic for another second before continuing her train of thought. "Yeah, he would have invited you over, cooked you something on the grill and talked your ear off."

Shepard smiled as he leaned next to her against the railing, trying to see what she saw in those ships flying by. Maybe just a glimpse at what might have been, since all those vessels are going about their own lives at their own pace, with their own stories to tell.

Maybe there was another Shepard out there, having a beer with Serviceman Third Class Edward Williams over how proud they both were of Ashley. How much they loved and respected the person she'd become… how lucky they were to have found each other.

He couldn't help but ask, "Ever think about what life might have been like outside the Alliance?"

"Oh sure. Tried to rebel against the whole military family thing when I was growing up. When my dad and I got into it, I'd threaten to run away with the next guy who came along." An amused smirk curled at Ashley's mouth.

Shepard liked seeing her this way. _Honest. Candid._ He encouraged with, "Really?"

Ash turned to Shepard and shrugged, "…He knew I'd never stray far from the family. They're everything to me." It was a simple statement that encapsulated all that Ashley Williams was, Spectre or soldier. _Loyal to the end._

Her lips curled up in a wider grin, and her tone lightened, "What about you? What would the great Commander Shepard be doing if he was just Regular Shepard?"

"I'm just as stuck as you are at this point, Williams," Shepard laughed, then paused to carefully ponder her question. "The truth is, I don't know. Because I'd have to ignore a lot of things that happened, then wonder how they would have been without me. Saren. The Collectors. The Reapers. Even as bad as everything is, I still believe I'm where I'm supposed to be." He held her eyes significantly before looking away. … _And I still haven't answered her question._

"I don't know if there is a Regular Shepard. But I'd hope he'd work hard, do the right thing, raise a family. If that life came with fewer bullets, more power to him."

Ashley beamed back, pleased with his honest answer. _Now we're getting somewhere._ She couldn't help but flirt, "Hopefully Regular Shepard would be able to handle a rowdy tomboy who could drill him between the eyes at 150 meters."

He chuckled. _One hundred-fifty now, huh? I better watch my back._ "That sounds great, Ash."

They both trailed off from amused smiling to something a little more intense, but neither would look away. Ash nervously tucked her hair behind her ear, and finally broke the eye contact to stare back out at the Presidium view. "So," she said simply, trying to think of a segue to another topic.

"So. …Right now, I can't focus on anything but you." Shepard relished the blush his boldness elicited. In true Ashley form, she deflected with husky teasing, "Well now. Those big, powerful Citadel arms giving you ideas, Commander?"

She took a step closer to lean against the railing in mirror to Shepard, but with crossed arms as well. He grinned back with a simple, "Maybe."

Ash looked down and nervously kicked at the ground, uncertain on how to proceed. "Then 'maybe' I have something to ask you."

"What?"

"Well…" She dragged her toe for a second before taking a deep breath, her dark eyes returning to his with sharp intensity. "We had something before... a long time ago. Something important."

Her voice dropped in shame, a deep crease appearing between her brows, but she maintained eye contact despite the pain. "You've seen me at my worst. Totally embarrassing." She rolled her eyes and shoulders helplessly while Shepard resisted the urge to laugh at the memory of her hangover just a short week ago.

"You were there for me when my baby sister was suffering." Ash's head turned to the empty seat and cup of tea. Her eyes lingered there as she continued, "I've… held a gun on you, Shepard." Her eyes snapped closed and her head dropped, the wound of her behavior still fresh even after all of Shepard's understanding and kindness.

He took a step forward, his hands finding hers with a reassuring squeeze to continue. "I'm just saying… we've been through a lot," she finally met his gaze once again, vulnerable and curious. "I have to know. Are we …going somewhere?"

Shepard returned with intensity, "I want more, Ash. I can't see myself with anyone else."

"That's good," Ashley sighed with relief. "I'd hate to have to punch out whichever table-dancing tart is throwing herself at you this time." Her eyes glinted with familiar teasing. _Hey there, Chief. Long time, no see.  
_

"Such a romantic," Shepard deadpanned even as his head inclined towards her lips of its own accord.

"You love it."

"Among other things, LC. Now stop talking."

"Yes, **sir**."

Shepard's Omni-tool pinged, cutting their tender moment short. He exhaled a "dammit" under his breath and pulled away, his eyes pleading for understanding.

"Wait. Right. Here. I have to meet Miranda at her apartment about something." He pointed behind them, just up the stairwell. "She's more skittish than usual since the Cerberus coup but says this is important. I'll be 5 minutes, I swear." Shepard held Ash's wrists for a moment, willing her to forgive him for disappearing so soon after finally coming back.

"Get to it, Commander. But don't be too long. There's a cute guy in C-Sec holding who's been making eyes at me. Scars, missing teeth, tattooed neck. A girl can only resist for so long," Ash teased, wiggling her fingers at a window on the northeast side of the Presidium. Shepard followed her gaze to a grubby human refugee in restraints pressed against the upper C-Sec office glass, exactly as she described him.

Shepard laughed heartily, both in amusement and relief, "Copy that, LC. Back in five or prepare to duel your other beau for your hand in the middle of the Presidium gardens." He gave her wrists a pat before turning on his heel in an easy climb to the apartment lobby and disappearing up another stairwell.

Ash spent those ten ( _not five! Liar!)_ minutes in an endless petty debate with herself. _Shepard wouldn't say those things, then turn around and go play with another woman. Plus you saw the vids (you asshole), he had plenty of chances to move on but he stuck around. That means something. Just relax. Have more shitty coffee. You've got the entire extranet on your Omni-tool, find some porn or poetry if you're bored. You're not his mother, he can meet with contacts. …Though not all those contacts are an embodiment of human perfection… GOD, GET OVER IT_.

Eleven minutes later, Shepard returned to their balcony though his cheerful mood had evaporated. Ashley recognized that crease in his brow. _Shepard's upset about something._

"Let's get out of here."

He smiled, though the smile didn't quite reach his brooding eyes, "Where?"

"Follow me."

As Ash led him back around to the elevator, her Omni-tool glowed. She paused mid-step to flick an index finger over the interface to her newly received message:

_[13:43:59, /USER UNKNOWN/: I see you found what you were looking for, —L]_

Ash looked around and, leaning against a balcony on the lower level, the asari doctor lifted a hand in acknowledgement. Ash offered a pleased nod, then continued on leading Shepard by the hand to the upper stairwell. Shepard raised an eyebrow, but allowed himself to follow for a change.

"Something important?"

"Just an old friend saying hello."


	6. Worth the Wait: Embassies

"Do I get a hint? Or a blindfold?" Shepard mused aloud as light flickered through the window of the rapidly accelerating Citadel elevator.

Ashley leaned against the opposite wall, savoring the space between her and the Commander. Otherwise… … _Okay, Williams. One kiss is not permission to continue that train of thought to its final destination. I know it's been a long time, but just …calm down. You waited two years, wait a little longer. …but, this_ _ **is**_ _fun._

A slanted grin accompanied a raised, mischievous brow, "You'll see, Commander." Shepard's expression started to retreat to more brooding when the elevator dinged open. A wide balcony stretched before them as a few dozen people loitered in their own conversations. Taxi cabs whirred in from the thrum of traffic above to retrieve and drop off passengers.

Ash waved her open palms in an exaggerated motion to point Shepard towards the only other door available on that balcony where a deep pulsing beat emanated. _Purgatory_.

"Do you want me to show you my sweet new moves?" He finally smiled again, remembering their brief moments of unprofessional behavior on the Citadel years ago. Chief Williams had once expressed appreciation at the action in the seamy wards underbelly compared to the more stilted Presidium. On more than one occasion, Shepard even managed to steal a dance with Ashley during downtime at Flux. _It seemed so long ago, but it really wasn't. To me, anyway,_ he mentally sighed.

Ash's laugh in response was nearly drowned out by a burst in music volume as the two Spectres crossed the inner door to the massive Purgatory floor. Neon beams of light traced shapes over the walls and huddled patronage, all sipping drinks or shouting conversations at one another. Shepard followed Ashley up the first group of stairs to the lower balcony containing the lounge area before he stopped to make a suggestive hand-wave to the upper balcony where silhouettes swayed and bounced on a lit floor.

"Tempting, Commander, but not really what I had in mind," she shouted over the music as he pulled at her hand. She slipped hers out of his grasp and jabbed a finger into his sternum. "Wait right here a minute. Or **five** ," Ash's head bobbed with wide-eyed sarcasm. _She's going to make me pay for running over with Miranda, isn't she?_

Before Shepard could try to apologize, Ashley pressed herself closer to him and he froze. The finger on his sternum traced up his chest and her lips were at his ear, murmuring, "I just need to go get something. You'll see." All he could muster was a tight, enthusiastic nod before dark brown hair swept across his face and she disappeared in the crowd. He occasionally saw lights reveal the distinct blue shoulders of her Spectre uniform or brighten a halo on her crown of hair, but they could have just been his imagination.

Left awkwardly alone in the open patch at the foot of the stairs, Shepard offered a perfunctory nod at the collection of couches on the east side of the lounge. Aria T'Loak raised a finger off her fluted glass in acknowledgement before returning attention to her Omni-tool and a minion at the ready with a fresh drink.

He leaned against the lower balcony railing, feeling strangely out of place. _This is the first time in a long time where I'm not on my way to somewhere. Or know what's going on._ His mind started to wander, despite the distracting bass of the club music, back to his conversation with Miranda Lawson.

The former Cerberus operative had been popping up via vids and impromptu rendezvous over the past few weeks of the building Reaper war. Her requests had grown more insistent but more mysterious as well. He asked once more about her sister, which she brusquely sidestepped. This time, Miranda softly asked for access to Alliance files as she paced in agitation from the window to the low sofa.

She looked… unkempt. Her uniform, normally spotless, showed wear and tear. Her pristinely brushed black locks were wispy and showed a light sheen of grease built up. _Is the war finally getting to her? I mean, even spending months aboard the SR-2 with "suicide" and "failure" stamped on every single mission, Miranda Lawson had been coolly unflappable. Making the impossible possible was one thing she and I shared._

"You'll have your access, Miranda." Shepard had promised, though he couldn't help adding, "But I don't like the look of this." She brushed him off with gratitude and spun on her heel, shifting her weight uneasily before staring out the large living room window.

Hoping to finally get some answers, Shepard guessed lightly, "That's not the only thing you wanted to talk about, is it?"

"No."

Simple. Straightforward. It was what Shepard liked about Miranda. What reminded him of Ash. In another life, he probably would have been drawn to Miss Lawson. Enjoyed cracking that tough shell, or drawing out a compliment here and a sweet flirtation there.

It had been a similar duel with Ashley aboard the SR-1; slowly gaining trust, exchanging intimate life stories, finding common ground. But Shepard had never truly gotten to enjoy the fruit of his labors with Ash before it was cut short, and he hadn't been willing to abandon hope when they'd been thrown back together. _That's what makes me a Shepard. I don't give up easily._

"I …need to tell you something. Confess, really," Miranda's accented voice actually cracked. She never got worked up over anything, Shepard noted. Only the prospect of speaking to her sister for the first time on Ilium had given her pause. _But jumping into a relay to battle an army of Collectors? Not so much as a blink._

She exhaled sharply before launching into a fast, slightly rehearsed story. How she had wanted to install a control chip in Shepard during the Lazarus Project. As a safeguard.

"I think you'd mentioned this before." _And I tried to forget about it._

"I did. There's more to it. The Illusive Man stopped me." _She was obviously upset, so I tried to comfort her. That it was okay. That I understood. That I was an unknown, being cautious was natural. But I felt my voice waver. I hated The Illusive Man. And part of me hated Miranda for being loyal to him for so long, especially after everything Cerberus has done to wreck the few wins we're stealing in this fight._

Miranda fidgeted and resumed her pacing, intent to unburden herself. Her forehead wrinkled as she recounted how hard she had fought against Henry Lawson and his need to control his daughters' lives. "He wanted total control over me. Right down to my bloody DNA. After I got out of there, I couldn't stand by and let it happen to my sister."

She crossed her arms and dropped her gaze to the floor. "I risked my life to get her away from all that. And yet I didn't give a second thought to destroying **your** free will when **I** had the power."

_I needed to get out there. I reassured her. That it wasn't crazy. That I was grateful to have two years of my life back. That she could have changed me in a thousand ways but let me still be Me. That I forgave her for her regret. It was what she wanted to hear, after all._

"Shepard. Shepard!" Ashley's voice called from over the pounding bass, and Shepard looked up to find the source. Elbowing her way from the bar area, Ash strode toward him with a broad grin and a large metal case under her arm. Not bothering to stop, she darted out a hand to grab Shepard's and yank him to the club exit.

"We're not staying? What about that dance?" He shouted, following in her wake. Her long hair trailed behind like a comet tail, and her tanned cheek turned to favor him with a devilish grin. "Everyone knows you can't dance, Shepard. But don't worry, I promise you'll still have a good time."

Back in the elevator. Shepard crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow as she hit the button for the Embassy. Ash adjusted the case from under her arm to both hands resting in front against her thigh. Small beads of sweat glistened on her face from the heat of all the bodies in the club, and that damn smug grin was back on her face.

"Do I deserve a hint yet? Or was that ten minutes of abandonment too much to bear?" The words tumbled out before Shepard could stop them. _Shit. Ten minutes? Try two years. Nice job. …Ass._

To Ashley's credit, she was in too good a mood to beat that dead horse again. "Well, you have been just **so** patient. And I didn't have to punch out any table-dancing tarts at Purgatory, which woulda damaged my shootin' hand," she deadpanned as she shifted her mystery case. "I guess you've earned a breadcrumb."

Zooming back across the Citadel, the familiar sights zipped by the window. Ash bounced her head toward her shoulder to signal for Shepard to join her. He closed the three steps of distance and reached for her waist, but instead Ash dropped the metal case into his open hands. Slightly heavy, there was a faint tinkling of glass inside as the contents rubbed together.

He held a thumb to the lid clasp and raised an eyebrow for permission to proceed. _Granted,_ her nod implied. Inside the case was a dozen phials of top shelf liquor, stamped with the Purgatory logo.

"I 'requisitioned' a little pick-me-up. Gotta put that Spectre status to use somehow." Shepard laughed at the absurdity, "Did you just pull rank on a bartender?"

Ashley shrugged, slightly sheepish. "I know, it's a stupid abuse of power. But apparently it's a longstanding Spectre tradition. One of the other Spectres, Jondum Bau, told me the Council has an arrangement with most of the Citadel shops and restaurants. Within reason, they'll give you anything you ask for and bill it to the Council."

"…so the Council just paid for us to get drunk."

"Yep." Ash's tight-lipped grin extended to her eyebrows, cheeks and eyes in genuine glee. Shepard shook his head while laughing, thumbing the case closed. He was still chuckling when the elevator doors swooshed open back to the Embassy lobby he'd left only a short hour ago.

Ashley beckoned for him to follow her down the east corridor. Picking their way through the growing crowd of refugees requesting travel documents, they made their way to the second door on the left.

SPECTRE OFFICE.

Empty as always, a security curtain swept over both humans as a VI voice hummed "Spectre status confirmed." Ashley rounded the corner away from the Spectre terminals to a door at the back marked Firing Range.

Shepard set the case of liquor on the weapon bench then turned to see Ashley tapping at the door console. "Privacy lock engaged," the VI droned back. She propped a foot against the wall and crossed her arms, then tilted her head proudly.

"So this is your big surprise, LC?"

"Well," Ash trailed off as she gently pushed off the wall to make her way over to the liquor case. Popping the lid, she grabbed a purple cylinder and unscrewed the top. "I figured we needed a private place to settle some things." She let the veiled threat hang in the hair as she tilted her head back for a long swallow of the red liquid. _Sort of a whiskey-wine combination. Not bad. Pretty smooth, actually. And thank God it's not tequila._

Shepard followed suit but raised an eyebrow. "Oh? I thought we settled where things stood pretty well back on the Presidium." His grin was briefly covered by his fingers wiping away a dribble of alcohol.

Waving a dismissive hand, Ash reached for one of the practice rifles stacked on the rack on the wall. She handed one to Shepard and proceeded to grab one for herself. Rotating the weapon, she carefully scrutinized the scope, tested the trigger (with the safety on, of course), hefted the weight and examined the ammo heat sink.

"I heard about your little bro date with Garrus on the Presidium," she stated simply, but with a slight accusatory tone. Shepard mimicked her evaluation of the practice rifle, the result of years of soldier training, before responding. "You did, huh?"

"Yea, the ground-breaking of Garrus's statue should be any day now. I suggested a nice Tennyson quote be carved into the base, maybe from _The Charge of the Light Brigade_ or something. But he insists that 'I am Garrus Vakarian and this is my favorite spot on the Citadel' is the only acceptable tribute to his greatness," Ashley deadpanned, though her voice dropped in a rumbling imitation of the turian.

Shepard's shoulders shook with an endless stream of chuckles. _That **had** been a lot of fun, was it only yesterday?_ The wind whipping by as cars sailed by overhead. The soft blue of the Presidium lake rippling below with a light dotting of green trees amidst all the artificial structures. He had felt free up there, with Garrus, taking sniper shots at lobbed skeets. In the end, Shepard had deliberately missed a shot so his turian friend could claim victory. _Losing never felt so good._

"Jealous, Williams? Garrus and I have a good thing going," Shepard returned back, enjoying the banter. They both took final swigs of their drinks before walking over to the target range, rifles slung over their shoulders.

"A little. But that chicken-legged **sniper** can yell 'Quality over quantity' 'til his face paint chips off. I'm here to settle who the better **soldier** is, Commander. You up for it?"

"Hell yes."

Like a gentleman, Shepard gave Ashley the first crack at the target range. _High score wins,_ the simple rules established. He found himself admiring her technique, among other things. Ash was focused, precise, and smooth. She was nearly halfway done with the simulation before she spoke.

"So, Shepard."

"So, Williams."

A dark eye glanced back at Shepard before returning to her crosshairs. "You gonna tell me what you and Lawson talked about?" She continued squeezing off short bursts of rounds at the moving targets, but hurriedly amended when he didn't answer right away.

"Look, I know it's none of my business. But you looked upset, is all."

He chewed on his cheek a moment. _Isn't this why I told Ash I wanted more? To have someone to trust, to be able to talk to about these things? We used to talk all the time. She never judged, just sometimes argued. I needed that. …I still do.  
_  
"Miranda needed information, for one. She always does, nowadays," Shepard sighed. _I know, I know. Didn't answer the question. I'm building up to it._ Ashley said nothing, but continued racking up points on the simulator.

"She also needed to apologize. Miranda was in charge of the Lazarus project that recovered my body and rebuilt me. I guess she'd wanted them to install a control chip in my brain, in case I went rogue."

"At least they did their homework," Ashley joked lightly. Her eyebrows raised, encouraging him to keep talking.

Shepard continued solemnly, "Miranda turned out to be a good friend. But part of me hates her. Not just for the control chip. For …rebuilding me." Ash's final score chimed on the scoreboard ( _Not bad!_ ) and she lowered her rifle to carefully scan Shepard's face.

Her response was simple and neutral, "What makes you say that, Shepard?" _God, I sound like those doctors on Arcturus when I was being evaluated for PTSD for my officer commission._

Tucking the butt of his rifle tightly to his collarbone, Shepard leaned into a hunch in front of the target range counter. He looked down at the floor to think a moment, before the chime of the practice round forced him to focus on his rifle scope. But the autopilot of shooting a weapon was pleasantly distracting, at least.

"Since I woke up on that research station, I just… I don't know. I feel off. I think part of me knows that I'm not supposed to be here. That I went home, wherever that was. Or that I'm going back home soon, because I don't belong here." _Sight your target. Exhale. Squeeze the trigger. Repeat._

"Do you remember—I mean… Do you still—?" _What am I trying to ask him? About dying? Heaven? What?_

"Do I remember dying? Sometimes. In my dreams. The black. I was suffocating. It was cold. But also burning hot. I could feel my armor melting. I don't remember the moment it happened. I didn't see a light or hear a voice calling me home or anything. It was just… nothing. And it was okay."

"But some of the things I've done…" Shepard sighed as he made tight swivels to sight his targets. "The Alpha Relay. I let three hundred thousand people die to slow the Reapers. I keep wondering: would I have done that before I died? Maybe I am just a Thing, a tool. To be controlled or thrown away." Shepard kept his breathing steady, but found his palms started to slick with perspiration. _Just say it._

"That's the reason I didn't try harder to contact you when I came back, Ash. Because if I wasn't me… you would know. But I still have to stop the Reapers. I don't have time to doubt myself, because if I start I'll never stop wondering."

Ashley leaned against her standing rifle that was propped up on the counter and chewed on her lower lip a moment. She was genuinely sad to hear he had doubts about who he was, that her accusations on Horizon and Mars had hit home _. I did this to him. Or …I guess 'us' did this to him?_

_In the end, does it matter? My prayers were answered. He looks like Shepard. He sounds like Shepard. He shoots like Shepard. And he had a dozen chances to walk away but he chose us._

_I don't have the answer right now,_ Ash decided. She also decided to change the subject.

"I have a confession too, Shepard."

The lightness to her voice was comforting. "Oh you do, do you?"

"Remember the morning you found me curled up on the floor?" Shepard chuckled as his session wound down but the difficulty amped up. _Sight, exhale, fire._ "How could I forget?"

Seeing Shepard relax slightly was worth the hit to her dignity, Ashley also decided. "I got hammered on Vega's reserve tequila because I was watching vids of you on the SR-2. Talking to your …female subordinates."

He mulled that over a moment as he nailed a particularly speedy, long-range target.

"Why didn't you just ask me?"

"I don't know. I thought that maybe… after Horizon… you'd look for someone …less confused. And I saw your crew, you had plenty of opportunities," Ash pleaded as heat spread to her cheeks in fresh shame.

"Plenty of opportunities to say no." _Oh, well that's …wait, what?_

"I checked on you, too, Ash. After I helped Liara with her little …information problem, I asked her to use her resources to find out how you'd been doing. She was very thorough, cross-referenced receipts and vid feeds with times and …companions, the whole shebang." Ash could only stand there, frozen in open-mouthed gawking.

"I wanted to see if …you were happy. And if you'd moved on, then I'd leave you alone," Shepard said simply as the last targets slid off the range. He lowered his rifle to the ground and smiled sheepishly.

"I was anything but happy, Shepard."

"Me too."

They both stood and stared at each other a moment, the confession too raw to be followed by either a smartass joke or a cheesy greeting card line. The chime of the scoreboard drew both sets of eyes upward, and the number on the screen broke the tension.

_A tie._

Their heads turned back to each other's in unison as competitive smiles crept up their lips. They both reached for a phial of 'requisitioned' Spectre alcohol and silently toasted each other. Shepard broke the silence first after a deep swallow, his familiar warmth returning to his voice.

"Best two out of three, Williams?"

"You're on... Skipper."


	7. By Your Bootstraps: Mess Hall

_Dammit._

_Dammit dammit **dammit** dammit **dammit.**_

Shepard paced the comm room. It had been fifteen minutes since he'd had to tell Councilor Tevos about Thessia falling, but Shepard's mind was still a raging torrent of meaningless swears.

He would sit in a chair for a few seconds, kneading at his knuckles, before exploding out of it to resume pacing. It was an endless cycle of anger to guilt back to anger again. He knew he had to get a hold of himself before appearing at the CIC, but Shepard just couldn't quiet his mind.

Every time he saw Kai Leng vault away with that Catalyst data, or Liara staring out the ruined temple at Reaper capital ships razing her home to the ground... He wanted to punch something.

A crumpled dent in the wall by the door was a testament that Shepard had lost that internal struggle. Which shifted his anger away from Cerberus or the Reapers and back to himself. _What am I? I didn't even feel that. I'm more machine than man and I still failed. What chance do we have? What am I not doing? What more can I do?_

Things had been going too well for too long. For the galaxy ( _sort of_ ). For the Alliance ( _sort of_ ). For Shepard ( _…definitely_ ).

He almost felt ashamed to be thinking of Ashley right then. _I don't deserve to be happy._

But he did calm down for a second. A guilty calm. _Just... go with it. At least until you can walk five steps without overturning a chair or yelling at some hapless private._

Deep breaths. Eyes closed. Close it off. In. Out. Closed. Off.

_Thessia. Gleaming organic spires and smooth surfaces, now dull and dark and turned to rubble. So much destroyed._

_Dark eyes. Once narrow and suspicious, now warm and bright and open. Life returned._

_Reapers. Everywhere. Asari. Turian. Rachni. Lit up with blue and black._

_Soft waves of warm brown. Flowing and soft in my hands._

_A blare of rumbling sound. A red burst of light. Burning ozone. Burning flesh._

_A sarcastic laugh. Lips soft and pink and glistening. Smells of light floral soap. Tastes like heaven._

Shepard opened his eyes and swallowed. It had helped some. Instead of a jitter of rage that he had to walk off, there was just a familiar, hollow, sick feeling. It alternated between his gut and the back of his heart, almost to his lungs. Just a dull, tugging pressure. That's all.

He knew this feeling. It had gone by several names over the course of his decorated military career. It liked to strip away any arrogant feeling of accomplishment that the Commander tried to claim. _Oh, you saved Rannoch? Legion is dead. Tuchanka? Mordin. The Council? Thane. Thessia? …what good did you do on Thessia?_

Shepard stopped that train of thought by launching himself out of the comm room into the cabled war room. He spied a brief look in the center of the room of the Crucible's holographic schematic. Nearly all the sections once red were now bright blue. Waiting for completion.

The security checkpoint also served as a temper check. Shepard kept his breathing even to see how he did listening to the irritating banter of the two female privates. _So far, so good._

Specialist Traynor was too engrossed in her work at her console to notice Shepard quietly padding behind her to the elevator. It wasn't until he silently tapped the button and took a step inside did he hear a lightly accented voice, "You have new messages at your private terminal, Commander." He didn't make eye contact with her sideways glance, and mumbled about taking them in his cabin. _Later_.

Instead the Commander tapped the glowing orange 3. The nineteen seconds of elevator time was refreshingly absent of any thinking. Then the door had to go and open. "Level 3, Crew Deck," a recording of EDI's voice hummed.

Staring back at Shepard was several dozen black placards, arranged in 2 neat rows on the wall. Once only holding twenty-three names of the fallen SSV Normandy SR-1 crew, new names were being added regularly. And even the ones added barely scratched the surface of the true losses of this war.

Blocking the view of the recently added _Thane Krios_ and _Legion_ , Tali'Zorah's silhouette stared thoughtfully at the wall. She also appeared to be talking to herself, her three-fingered hand nervously tracing circles over her purple frosted mask as her other hand propped up an elbow. It wasn't until he heard Garrus's rumbling tenor over the intercom that Shepard was aware of their discussion.

After Liara's heated exchange with their surly Prothean crewmate Javik, the atmosphere on the Normandy was more strained than ever. Even the loss of an entire planet was dimmed by the fear of encountering the devastated asari in a ship corridor and saying the wrong thing. Tali and Garrus were verbally drawing straws over which of them should approach her and when and to say what.

"I'll go to talk to her."

Tali jumped slightly as her pearlescent eyes darted to where Shepard had spoken at her elbow. The turian and quarian both hastily agreed that yes, Shepard should be the one to speak to Liara. The only thing more hasty than their agreement was how quickly Tali swept into the closing elevator or how quickly Garrus trailed off about more calibrating needed in the main battery.

Shepard sighed, taking up where Tali had stood at the wall. _I said I would talk to her. I didn't say right this second._

His eyes methodically roved the columns of names, memorizing each one anew. His Good Commander mind desperately tried to reconcile his failures to these people. _We have a plan. Specialist Traynor tracked Kai Leng to Horizon. We will push and push until we crack Cerberus wide open. And then we will take the Crucible to the Reapers and blow them straight back to hell._

Ashley stepped out of the steaming women's locker room, applying a towel to her long wet hair. Her eyes were closed as she ran a hand through her damp locks, so she didn't see Shepard standing in the hallway until they nearly collided.

A surprised grunt escaped her throat as she stopped suddenly, but a quick hand from Shepard prevented her from tripping.

"At ease, Lieutenant Commander," he held her upper arm for a bit longer than necessary, then reluctantly returned it to her. Ashley smiled gratefully but it evaporated when she saw the worried crease in his brow.

"What's on your mind, Commander?" she offered softly while continuing to administer the towel to her hair. Shepard turned away to lean against the wall, gazing pensively once more at the memorial.

Ash joined him at his side, and it was several long moments before she spoke again.

"Shepard. This wasn't your fault."

His bitter words lunged at her softness, trying to devour it. "It's not about fault. I was supposed to stop them. **Me**. It's why I'm here."

"You will," was Ash's measured reply. She knew that tone. She had used it a thousand times over the past two years. All that tone wanted was to pick fights. To wound. To push the hurt on everyone else. You don't feed it. Its hunger knows no end and it just leaves you hollow and alone.

A huffy sigh from Shepard. "I don't know if I can do this, Ash. Earth. Palaven. Thessia." His palm exploded out from his crossed arms to cut the air with the force of his self-rebuke. "I'm risking **everything** to build the Crucible, and I'm not even sure what it **does**."

His palm clenched into a fist back at his side, his other hand held his inside elbow as though to keep the hand in check. "Who am **I** to make that call?"

Ashley gripped her towel tightly and braced herself to look at Shepard's eyes... _Just as I suspected._ His blue eyes were a cold inferno. Clear and glazed all at once. Something else she was intimately familiar with, that they shared in common. Self-loathing. Inadequacy. To see your failures clearly but your successes are lost to fog.

"Shepard," she began insistently. "You were the one that was right. All along. You fought when no one else would, when no one else believed you." She dared him to fling her words back as an accusation, as hypocrisy. But he remained silent.

"You should talk to T'Soni. She's gotta be hurting." Ashley had ached inside, seeing Liara in the war room as they debated how to make Kai Leng pay for stealing their one hope from the ruins of Thessia. The asari had been calm and measured, but boiling at the surface. Ash had felt that helpless fury herself only a few short months ago. _I left my home behind too, Liara. I left it to burn. But I'll be back to make it right._

"…What do I say to her?" Shepard asked. Tali and Garrus had been no help. EDI might have some insight, but it would require too much explanation of human behavior to reach a decent epiphany. Javik would most certainly be useless, as most of the conversations since his awakening on Eden Prime were dripping with disdain. Vega buried his pain in his workouts. Ash… she was the only one left to ask. _The right one._

"The truth. This isn't her fault. This isn't **your** fault. Even with the Catalyst, Thessia was still going to be hit hard. Just like Earth. All we can do is hurry to kick Cerberus's ass and try to end this war. It's the only way." Her hand found Shepard's clenched fist and her fingers wound between his.

They continued to stare at the dark wall for several long minutes more, neither willing to give up the comforting warmth their hands drew upon. Their thoughts were streaming and random, a mixture of prayers and details. Ashley was the one to finally break the stalemate. Her hand reluctantly peeled from Shepard's and she pushed his shoulder in Liara's direction.

"Go. I'll be right here when you're done."

He didn't smile in response, but his eyes lightly crinkled. The Commander turned on his heel to round the corner and disappeared into the cabin.

 _You should talk to T'Soni. She's gotta be hurting._ Ash remembered saying that before. Just after Liara's mother died at their hands. Most of Ash's losses had been quiet and separate. But Liara's had been on display to the entire Normandy crew. Twice.

Ash also remembered a time when sending Shepard into Liara's arms would have had her climbing the walls, or taking apart every single weapon on the Normandy. Their dysfunctional little family didn't have time to waste on jealousy anymore. _Even_ _ **I**_ _have to grow up some time. And everyone needs Shepard. I can't keep him for myself._

The Lieutenant Commander paused outside her cabin after pitching the damp towel down the laundry chute, but instead of entering, she turned the corner to the Mess Hall tables. Here she would have perfect line-of-sight to see when Shepard finished consoling T'Soni. Filling a glass with water, Ash settled in to the long table, propping her feet up on the opposite chair.

Her Omni-tool flashed to life as a finger traced over the orange interface to a set of extranet bookmarks. She flicked through some of her favorites, mostly catalogs of poets or manuals on new shiny rifles, before returning to the topmost and oldest bookmark.

 _Ulysses, Lord Alfred Tennyson._ Only appropriate, though her favorite verse once used to seduce Shepard had a more somber meaning after what happened to Thessia.

 _Death closes all: but something ere the end_  
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,  
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.

 _Do the asari have poets? Surely they do. What… what pronouns do they use? 'Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods'? How would they write that? 'Not unbecoming asari that strove with the Goddess'? Doesn't have quite the same kick. Or am I just saying that because I'm human?  
_  
Ash had refilled her glass twice and reread _Ulysses_ six times when Liara's cabin door finally swished open. Shepard tugged at his shirt sleeves tiredly, then collapsed with a sigh into the chair next to Ashley. He slumped over, resting his chin on his crossed arms, and stared at the wall.

Ash waggled her water glass at the Commander in offering, which he gladly took and downed in one gulp. She stretched out a thumb to wipe a glistening trail from Shepard's chin and couldn't help curling her index finger under his chin to turn towards her.

"How did it go?"

"Rough. But she's a fighter. Fight now, process it later." He paused a moment, his mouth tightening into a short line and his eyebrow raised in chagrin, "I… might have yelled at her a little."

"Really? …I mean, it **does** get results. What happened?"

Shepard's sheepish expression smoothed out as he leaned back in his chair. He spoke to the ceiling, "She was distraught. Blaming herself that she had broken her promise to save her people. Blaming herself for failing. Liara didn't fail anyone, **I** did. I told her it wasn't her fault. She said that wasn't true.

"I got mad. The asari knew about the Reapers. They're the most advanced civilization in the galaxy. They should have been hit first, if I hadn't made a mess of things and put a target on humanity's back. Asari High Command had never been as vocally thick-headed as the turians or salarians. They knew this was coming. They should have prepared. And they didn't."

"…you didn't say all that to T'Soni, did you, Shepard?" Ash asked gently. _I know I said tell the truth, but there's the truth and The Truth._

Shepard turned to Ashley, a light exhale of a laugh coming from his nose. "No. I gave her the short version. She did everything she could for her people and they didn't listen to her. She's been warning them for three years. Then I started rummaging through her consoles."

"I bet she didn't like that. Knowing Liara, there are a dozen different systems in place to organize her files that your grubby Commander hands were messing up," joking gently, Ash looked at the hallway to Liara's cabin. The angle they were sitting at didn't give them a sight on the door, so Liara very well could be listening from the doorway and they wouldn't know it.

"It took about five seconds for her to push me aside. She mumbled about helping the refugees, and then her hands were flying over those screens, doing her Shadow Broker thing. She'll throw herself into her work, then collapse from exhaustion, then start the day over again. Until we win."

Shepard sighed at Ashley, and his last words were a whisper, "We have to win." _For Liara. For the asari. For everyone._

Ash got up and dug around the lower cabinets until she found a familiar case with the Purgatory logo. Popping the clasps, she dug out the two remaining phials of liquor and another glass from the supply pantry. She returned to the chair opposite Shepard and poured two fingers worth of red liquid into their glasses. _Let's take it slow._

Shepard gratefully swallowed and gestured for a refill. "I'm just …at a loss here, Ash. We've lost so much, and we're going to lose a lot more before this is over."

"Are you referring to Thessia, our friends, or you and me?"

"Mostly Thessia, but …yea. All of the above."

"We'll get through it, Shepard. All of it. If Earth can hold out, so can Thessia," Ashley touched Shepard's hand reassuringly before looking over her right shoulder in the direction of Liara's cabin.

Ash inhaled deeply before turning back to him, though her eyelids had one name burned into them from the memorial next to the elevator. _Kaidan Alenko_. "And I've been following the advice that **you** gave **me** : I remember our friends, and I'm gonna do better for them."

"I did say that, didn't I?" he asked lightly, pleased that she remembered his words as vividly as he did hers.

"Sure did, Skipper. And... I know how you feel. Where everything is hopeless. You just... keep going. Because it's the right thing to do." _Man, that's deep, Williams. You should start your own line of fortune cookies. ...shut up, Brain. I'm doing the best I can._

He nodded absently, still staring straight ahead with his eyes only dimly seeing Ashley in front of him. Finally, Shepard smiled softly before glancing around the mess hall. _All alone._

"And …what about us?"

Ashley sighed, lightly sipping her drink, "I hate this conversation. It sounds stupid in my head, so out loud is just ...ugh. Plus it feels like a jinx, talking about what we may or may not have. As though we're daring the universe to take it from us because we had the gall to put words to it. Hell, the last time we slept together you died a month later. That can break a girl, Shepard."

Shepard shifted his weight in his chair and squeezed the glass in his hands with his thumbs. "I know. I'm still trying to get it straight in my head that we're both here right now. I just wish I knew what to call it."

The next words spilled out of Ashley's mouth before her mind could even process them. She was speaking more for herself than Shepard.

"I guess I just hate the words to describe this thing between us. Fraternization? Dating? Courting? Friends with benefits? They're all just …inadequate and oversimplified. It makes it seem trivial, finite, and childish. Like it was easy to get over when it ended, when you… you know..."

She swallowed the anger and sadness creeping into her voice, before switching to a lower voice to impersonate an imaginary conversation, "'Oh it's no big deal, it's not like you guys were married or anything.' I heard that one from my counselor. 'Or in a serious relationship.' Right. Thanks, Doc. That'll take care of it and make it hurt less."

Shepard winced but was inwardly slightly pleased. This was new territory for him and Ash, trying to put a title to what they'd agreed to rekindle back on the Citadel.

He suggested, "'Relationship,' maybe? I mean, that's a level of consistency two soldiers like us will probably never really have, between dodging bullets and running around the galaxy."

Ash agreed, "Yea, I'll be happy for the day we have time for tinfoil miniskirts and cloth napkins." A smile reappeared on Shepard's solemn face, picturing that hyperbolic date scenario. He playfully gave her an exaggerated look up and down, then that smile expanded into a lecherous grin as he stroked his chin stubble.

Ash kicked at his shin under the table, uttering a quick exhaling laugh. She sobered up quickly, however. "'Relationship' is a word for the future, Shepard, when all we have is the present."

Her mind continued the train of thought as her hands crept up to hold her chin. _We fought and bled and crawled just to get to the simple starting point everyone else takes for granted. And each milestone was stolen underneath the noses of our superiors, steeped in infidelity to our oaths to the Alliance, before the Collectors kicked it out from under us._

"Ash. We're just us. That's all. You and me. …That's all I have to give right now." Her hands bracing her chin were pulled away into Shepard's grip across the table. His expression was sad, but also encouraging.

"I know, Shepard. I know there are bigger things going on than you and me."

Ash wanted to be reassuring, pull some of that optimism out that's been tightly contained in her gut. But her realistic mind was always in control. "And that's just assuming we even survive. I'm not afraid of dying, Skipper. I'm afraid of living. Without you. You died once and it wrecked me. One more hit and I'm a goner."

Shepard stayed silent. Nothing he was thinking was helpful, or a suitable follow-up to that confession. He only rubbed his thumbs over the backs of her hands and willed her to understand that he was here to stay. _As long as I can, anyway._

Ashley started to feel uncomfortable under the heat of Shepard's gaze. She decided to break the tension with a soft purr, "But I do like the idea of having something to come back to."

"Me too," Shepard agreed, though his eyes continued to drift intensely over Ash's face.

Unable to take the silence anymore, Ash moved to stand, "I should go check on James to make sure the armory is in top shape before we hit Horizon." Shepard followed her to the elevator as a dutiful escort.

When the door opened, Ashley pressed a hand to her Commander's cheek and whispered softly, "I believe in you, Shepard."

As she started to turn to enter the lift, he leaned into her touch hungrily as his lips found hers. Her soft fingertips gripped behind his jaw to pull him closer, while Shepard's hands sought the small of her back in a tight embrace.

They stood at the elevator for several long moments, only moving to adjust their heads to suit their ravenous mouths. Shepard started to guide Ash inside the elevator while her hand swiped at air to reach the buttons. Their kisses deepened as Shepard pressed her against the elevator wall. Ash's one hand probed his shoulder while the other ruffled through the short hair on his neck.

Suddenly the elevator chimed, "Level 2, CIC."

"Shit!" Shepard and Ashley exclaimed in unison as they flew apart just before the doors swept open. Specialist Traynor stood at the doorway, datapad in hand, her dark mouth turned upward in an amused grin.

"Commander. Lieutenant Commander," her soft accent trilled.

Ashley straightened her uniform and made a deliberate show of pressing the button for the Shuttle Bay. "We'll talk later, Shepard."

The Commander accepted Traynor's datapad with a stern look, before turning back to Ash. He managed a promising whisper before the doors closed. "Looking forward to it, Williams."

Samantha beckoned Shepard over to her console to discuss information she'd gathered on Horizon, but held up a hand to stop him. Still grinning with amusement, she tapped the corner of her mouth with a fingertip. "You've got a spot of lipstick on your face, Commander."

Shepard sheepishly batted a palm at his mouth as his ears burned. But the smile he'd been suppressing broke the surface.

"Remind me to the thank the Lieutenant Commander."

"For?"

"Pulling you out of your insuff'rable malaise. Buck up, marine. You're in the milit'ry. And we've got a war to win."

"Roger that, Traynor." _  
_


	8. Long Overdue: Captain's Cabin

His eyes were already exhausted from the late hour. Darting from the clock to his terminal to the wall was just exhausting Shepard further.

But sleep wouldn't come.

There's no sleep before what he was proposing they do. Full scale galactic retaliation. Against Cerberus. Against the Reapers. For the survival of every one and every thing. _…no pressure._

His hands returned to his N7 leather jacket's zipper often, alternating between lifting and pulling. The compulsion was usually soothing but the anxiety of it all was starting to consume the Commander. Pulling up reports on the Sanctuary incident on Horizon just furthered his conflicting emotions.

_Each victory came at such a high price. Miranda and her sister in exchange for thousands of human refugees. Henry Lawson dead while Kai Leng escaped. Sanctuary shut down but The Illusive Man finished his ungodly experiments._

_What will the trade-off be to finally beat the Reapers? When will what we sacrifice be enough?_

Shepard found himself swallowing deeply and rubbing the back of his neck. He was so consumed with scenarios riddled with searing red beams and innocent screams that he didn't hear the door to his cabin gently _swish_ open. Nor the light tread of boots on the metal floor.

Ashley paused at the entranceway, overcome with the déjà vu of the situation. _Here we are again, Williams. …we are indeed, Brain._ She crossed her arms and leaned against the wall, grateful that the pensive Commander hadn't noticed her yet.

_Does he look the same as he did almost three years ago? I think so. More stressed, for sure. The stakes are certainly higher… or… are they the same? We didn't fully know what Saren was up to, but it_ _**was** _ _the same, wasn't it? Reapers annihilating all life. No second chances. Except we got one. That we're in danger of losing. Again._

That last thought agitated Ashley into action. She strode over to Shepard's desk, arbitrarily straightening the loose datapads, picture frames and Alliance-stamped coffee mug. Just to give her hands something to do.

"Everything's ready, Shepard," she said simply. _As ready as it'll ever be._

He wasn't surprised to see her. Just as before. It was the end of the line and Ash was next to him. Like she was supposed to be.

As she leaned over the desk in mirror to his stance, he asked, a little too gruffly, "What about you? Are you ready?"

Ash smiled sadly at the question, and at how the lines in Shepard's brow somehow etched deeper. "Let's get it done. And go home."  
 _  
What? How can you even say that?_ Her oversimplified statement annoyed Shepard. Even though it was intended to be a testament to her faith in him, _as you well know_ , he still couldn't bury the irrational irritation. He quickly shifted his weight back and forth while his hands squeezed at the desk edge to control his temper.

"We're not getting off that easy, Ash."

Her laugh was an exhaling vibration as she turned around, sitting lightly on the desk edge. She was tired of looking at the back of Shepard's head. _Why won't he look at me?_ Ashley gently leaned over to bump her shoulder up against his in childish flirtation, "No? We lookin' at a rough ride?"

He normally welcomed her touch, but he was suffocating under the weight of his worries. _A rough ride... a rough ride? Do you have any idea what's at stake? …Of course she does._ But her glibness was just too out of place. He pushed away from the desk, away from her.

He managed to stifle the cruel rebuke on his tongue that wanted to pull rank and send her away, but not quite enough… "Ash. I get what you're trying to do." The words were cold. Final. He locked eyes with her before he started to walk away, his expression impossibly sad and thoughtful.

"Hey. Hey!" _Okay, I was a little out of line. Too soon to joke about this._ Ashley reached out to Shepard's retreating shoulder. The sadness in his face as he turned back chilled her blood. It was tinged with hopelessness, something she never thought she'd see in her Commander's eyes.

"No brushing me off. Talk to me," she pleaded. "What's going on?" _What's happened to you?_

 _She's just trying to help._ Shepard studied the design on Ashley's uniform jacket, unable to meet her gaze. He spoke at the S1 on her lapel, trying to put words to the inferno raging in his head.

"I'm not brushing you off." _Liar. This is Ashley. She gets the truth. She's earned it._ "I'm just… thinking about everyone we've lost fighting this war," he said with hooded eyes, finally looking into hers.

Ash softened at his admission. She'd been doing the same for the past few hours, after all. Placing very expensive vid calls to her mother and sisters. Writing encouraging emails to her remaining unit from Horizon who were serving with the Fifth Fleet. Praying to God and reciting old verses of her father's favorite poets; words of hope and longing and comfort.

"I understand." _Man do I ever._ Shepard's fingers intertwining with hers pulled out a pain that had been ebbing, a pain ready to finally let go. _Just give it the word already, Williams. Launch the escape pod on it and move on._

Her hand wrapped around his as she admitted, "You know, I was lost without you, Shepard. When I thought you were dead, it—it broke my heart." He stepped closer as the aquarium threw shimmering blue light over his face tilted in empathy. Ash studied that face more clearly in the light, noticing new and old things. A scar here, a wrinkle there, a slight nick on his neck from too a close shave. _How close is that shave,_ she wondered idly. _It was soft but slightly scratchy before._

"And then… you found your way back. It was a miracle," her husky voice quietly proclaimed. Wanting to lighten things, Ash deflected the seriousness with levity. "Screw the science. It was a damn miracle, Shepard."

 _How was I angry with her just a few seconds ago?_ Shepard wondered, closing the gap between them. Her eyes were slightly squinted below raised eyebrows, a concerned but hopeful smile on her lips. It was the look of acceptance, of understanding, of promise. He hadn't seen that look in two years.

"I couldn't do this without you, Ashley." His thumbs traced circles on her gloved palms as he remembered the last time he told her that, just a few short weeks ago, in the Citadel Docking Bay. How at odds they'd been, the massive hurdles to overcome, the trust that lay in ruins. All rebuilt into a tentative comfort.

Shepard continued, eager to say all the things he never had a chance to on the SR-1. "When I first saw you back on Eden Prime, I didn't know my life would change."

Ashley's expression was curiously blank, but her eyes held his with intensity. Begging but fearful for him to continue.

"Maybe I was scared to admit that I'd found something I had been looking for my whole life."

Fear took over. Ash knew she couldn't deflect his words with a joke without being cruel, but she couldn't reign in the skittish jitter in her chest. It was fight or flight at work, and she wanted both so badly. She hated herself for pulling away, nearly backing into the gurgling aquarium. Head down. Red and orange fish darted away from her reflection as she felt the cool glass against her uniform.

"You don't need to say anything, Shepard," was her cold response to his raw confession. _Goddammit, Williams,_ her mind railed. _What are you doing? How long have you wanted this? Remember what happened before Ilos? You said if he wanted to hear that you—you—you know, he would just have to come back to you. Well guess what? Here he is. So what the hell do you think you're doing?_

"No. I do." Shepard partially understood why Ash was evading. He'd hurt her. He hadn't meant to, but he had. _And you can't promise anything. Because it'd be a lie. And only truth, remember?_

_Ash gets the truth. She's earned it._

"I love you."

His hand pulled her chin away from her floor-watching, demanding she look into his eyes. He found himself watching her lips before actually checking her reaction. The glazed pain cleared and she even managed a smile. She was transformed from fear into intensity.

"I doubted you once, Shepard. And I lost you," Ash said simply, her sadness and anxiety shoved back to the pit of her stomach. It was in the past. The actual past, this time, not just because she said so. It was replaced by determination, by hope. "That's not happening again."

Taking control, Ash pulled Shepard's hand to her waist while her fingertips ran up his other shoulder. He surrendered to her embrace as she forcefully muttered, "Just shut up and kiss me."

_Aye aye, Chief._

They remained nearly motionless for several moments, drawing on the softness of each other's mouths, the hunger, the sweetness. Ash's hand held Shepard's wrist at her waist, keeping him tight and close. They finally pulled apart as their breathing started to quicken.

Shepard traced his thumb over Ash's lips. Those lips. When all his dreams faded to black, all he was left with were her soulful eyes and those luscious lips. They were the beginning and end to all their problems and joys. Combative. Earnest. Wanting. The start and finish to everything he loved and lusted about her. His thumb was his gateway, smoothing lazy paths over her cheeks, eyebrows, chin, lips. He prayed there was a way to memorize her face simply through touch.

Her smile beamed back at him, bright and warm with longing. Ashley's other hand squeezed at his neck, but the gloves were starting to annoy her. _What was I thinking, wearing these?_ She raised her arms to his shoulders and tugged the fingertips off behind Shepard's head, tossing the gloves uselessly away from them.

That smile curled a little more playfully as she explored his face with her own fingertips. Lazy circles and gentle caresses confirmed her earlier wonderings about the closeness of Shepard's shave, while warm kisses at his jaw expressed her approval.

Briefly content to allow their lips to hungrily reenact two years of lost time, both Shepard and Ash couldn't ignore the pressure in their chests (or was it somewhere else?) that demanded more. Her smooth fingers pushed the N7 jacket off broad shoulders while his eager ones tugged down the zipper on a Spectre uniform top. Their simple white undershirts allowed ticklish squeezes along muscular forearms and biceps.

Clothing continue to rustle amongst their hitched breaths as Shepard quietly exerted pressure to guide them away from their backboard at the aquarium over to the large bed. Ash finally held up a hand in timeout, gesturing to their garments with a pointed thumb thrust outward. _Double-time, marine_ , her expression demanded.

Ash was suddenly nervous again. Little fears were tripping over themselves in her mind, all clamoring for control of her shaking hands as she undressed at the foot of the bed. She was unable even to sneak an appreciative glance at Shepard who was dropping his clothing on the couch nearby.

The Superficial fears came first: _Did Cerberus fix him? …all of him,_ a suggestive tone wondered. _What if he's not how I remember him? Old scars? New scars? I know I have new scars. What if he doesn't like them? What if he turns away from what I became while he was gone?_

Then the deep-rooted Emotionals: _What if he feels different? What if he feels like I'm different?_ _He tastes the same. Do I taste the same? What if I can't—what if he doesn't—what if we…_

Ashley was removing her boots as Shepard did the same. It dawned on him that they were both thinking the same thing but weren't saying it out loud. The space between them at that moment was a gaping a chasm, one that he didn't want to topple into. Especially alone.

"I'm scared too, Ash."

She paused, but still refused to look over at him. "Of me?"

"Of **me**. I know you're wondering about it. I'm wondering the same thing. But I know the only way I'll ever be me is with you. Will you stay?"

"I'll stay," Ash said automatically, relief creeping into her voice. She set the rest of her uniform on the floor in a half-effort to fold it then pulled herself backward on her elbows, settling into a lazy lounge on the soft sheets.

Shepard walked over to her and stood at the foot of the bed, uncertain and uneasy. He held his hands up and turned to the right and left, allowing Ash a complete view of his bare torso and legs. _Well?_ his open palms asked. Her dark brown eyes wandered down his muscular form as his blue ones took in hers.

_Was he always this tan? I don't remember. There's the old scar from the Citadel on his abdomen there. And the white faded scratches on his collarbone from thresher maw acid. There are others I don't recognize. Some are missing, but which ones? I don't remember. But his silhouette is just as I remember; powerful, chiseled, a slightly lazy air of confidence yet gentle._

_She's just… so beautiful. Dark hair slightly messy and spilling over her shoulders. Black lace. Glistening and toned and beautiful. Before Ilos, she was so forceful and insecure. I loved it. Now she's so vulnerable but confident. I love it more. I hope we get more time, this time. But even if we—we… Don't, Shepard._ _Focus on what's in front of you. The future is for later._

Ashley's permission to proceed was to reach over and grab the top of Shepard's boxers until he fell into a crouch over her on the bed. Her hands roved gently across his chest and stomach while he cupped her cheek in his hand.

As he leaned in to claim her lips once more, Ash's hand pressed to his at her cheek. They stayed that way for several moments, deepening the kiss until they both broke away with breathless, but relieved, laughter. _Did I almost not let this happen?_ They both wondered.

The light in the cabin was a shimmering blue mixed with a harsh orange. Even though the colors were opposites, they complimented the moment and enhanced their mutual beauty. Blue shadows accentuated Shepard's sculpted muscles. Orange light made Ashley's flowing curves glow.

Ilos was desperation. Fear. Comfort. A stolen night. Blue.  
This time was hopeful. Soft. Fierce. Long overdue. Orange.

In this light, this place, they had a chance to pour all their crazy emotions into the other and let go. They would carry each other's burdens now, take responsibility for what they did and didn't say. One pushes, the other pushes back. Just as they always had.

Shepard spotted the mischievous glint in Ashley's eyes too late as she yanked at his offbalance shoulder and flipped them both over on the bed. She was in charge. For now.

Shepard's okay with that.

_There you are. Found you._

_I've got you._

_I've got you, too._

_Stay with me._

_Always._

* * *

Ashley was walking through ruins. _Virmire_. But not the Virmire she remembered. She had once stood on an amazing, lush, verdant world with water everywhere and rock formations and beaches. If not for Saren Arterius, Ash would have memorized the view and kept it with her as a mental vacation down the road when things got rough.

But now the water was all dried up. Riverbeds were cracked and dry with bones littered everywhere. There were ashes choking the air, making it hard to breathe. Trees were gnarled and doubled over, snapped branches clogging the pathway, making it difficult to walk.

It was the ruins of a nuclear bomb at work. But there were bones she knew she would never find. _Kaidan_.

"Hey there, Chief," a gravelly voice answered her thoughts.

"Kaidan." And just like that, Kaidan was there. The Lieutenant stood at the edge of the facility ruins, dressed in his casual Alliance uniform with that crooked smile on his face.

"It's been awhile, Williams. We haven't met here in… how long's it been? Months? I started to miss you." Kaidan's golden-brown eyes were warm with mirth, but there was a dark aura about him. _He is a not a good dream,_ her logical mind warned.

"Oh, relax," he waved a hand dismissively at her silent words. "I'm just saying that I missed you is—is all." He always had a light stutter. Not even a nervous stutter, it was just his brand of accent. Ashley had sarcasm, Kaidan stuttered.

"Why are we back here?" She hated this place. It was everything terrible and miserable about her past.

"That's really up to you, Chief. Learned anything? We come here when you're mad at—at yourself. We come here when you're mad at the world. So… w-who are you mad at this time?"

Ash thought a moment. "Nothing. I'm okay. I'm really okay, LT."

"Yea, I noticed a few things missing from—from last time. Finally told Shepard how badly he fucked you up when he left." _Warning_ , her mind droned. _He's baiting you_.

"He didn't leave me. He died. He didn't want to leave."

"So you believe that now."

"Yes."

"Are you sure?"

No hesitation. "Yes."

"Well," Kaidan said simply. He swept a hand over the desolate landscape, and the ground shook. Bones and branches vibrated along the floor as the sandy floor started to gather mounds in certain spots. Out of the mounds, bodies popped out of the ground.

Not living ones, as she should know them. For all account they looked like living people, but Ash knew they weren't. Nirali Bhatia stood at the front, while ten other squadmates from the Eden Prime 212 stepped forward. Ash had talked to them before. They never talked back. She had pleaded, begged, apologized, raged and ignored them, but they still never spoke. _Why are they here? They don't belong here._

"Did you mean what you said? Are you doing better for us?" Nirali whispered, her voice layered and echoing. Parts of words and her accent filtered in, but Ash had forgotten a lot of what she sounded like so the wind was trying to fill in the gaps.

 _We're going to stop the Reapers_ , Ashley proclaimed to herself. She had said that before, but Kaidan had just laughed before. He didn't laugh this time.

"Happy to hear it, Chief. You do us proud. And you finally stopped wasting your second chances." He stretched out a hand to clasp her wrist, and Ash was surprised to sort of feel the pressure and weight this time.

Suddenly, the forms gathered around her were hit by a green blast. Several disintegrated into nothing once more. Ash reached out to try and catch them, but her hands only clenched around dust and ashes. Green blasts continued to pepper around her, until the 212 were dust once again.

Saren Arterius swooped in on his flyer, one leg lazily propped up and his arms crossed imperiously. The landscape had instantly changed from ground level to several stories up. Two towers blocked the scenery as dead salarians dotted the defense perimeter. _Where was Kirrahe?_ Ashley wondered, gripping the rifle tightly behind her low wall of cover.

She checked over herself, seeing pink and white heavy armor instead of her blue medium officer armor. Her mind warned that that was out of place, but it was too familiar to be wrong, right? Green mass effect-powered blasts silenced that train of thought, forcing her to crouch lower behind cover.

 _I remember this. Shepard came last time, from the stairwell. Guns blazing like some ancient cowboy._ But moments ticked by and there was no gunslinger to the rescue, no Wrex or Liara flinging blue energy at geth. _Geth. Where are the geth? There were always geth before. I hated geth._

_But they're just… like us now, aren't they? Legion. He—it wanted what we wanted._

"Not afraid of the geth any more, are we, human?" Saren's voice boomed from everywhere, derisive and reverberating. Ashley hazarded a peek behind cover. The turian Spectre was still zipping around menacingly.

His form was curious and shifting. One second he looked like an ordinary turian, then next his scaly flesh and blue eyes flickered to solid metal and wires. His claws were daggers and his flesh peeled away to reveal glowing blue tumors, a cancer of nanites and circuits.

"Finally smartened up, for a dumb human. There's a lot more than geth to be afraid of. It took you long enough." To emphasize his point, there was a foghorn of sound blaring off in the distance. Giant red beams started probing Virmire, setting the watery paradise ablaze.

Ash was angry. She rolled from cover and sighted Saren, her finger allowing calm short bursts of bullets. They struck a kinetic barrier, increasing the flicker of his unsteady form. Saren did not return fire, but continue his orbit around the AA towers.

"You still think you can fight back." Not a question. A statement. _I will always fight back._ "You can't win, human. You didn't fight back when your precious hero left. What makes you think you can keep going without him this time?"

 _There won't be a 'this time.'_ "You can't promise that. Neither can he. He'll probably die again. He's good at it. He's had …practice." Ash fired back again, trying to control her anger. _What does this accomplish? He's right. We need Shepard. I need Shepard._

 _You survived without him before,_ her mind softly replied. _Barely. It was terrible. But you did. You kept fighting. You always fight. You're a Williams. He's a Shepard. You push forward. He pushes back._

"You're nothing!" Saren's growl cut the air and he rapidly descended, slamming into Ashley with his flyer. She skidded backward toward the edge, but grabbed at the balcony to keep from falling. The turian corpse strode towards her and reached out abnormally large claws to pick her up.

Saren held her by the throat at the edge of the facility, the wind whipping around her face as her feet kicked at empty air.

"You'll never beat the Reapers, human. You're nothing before them."

And then his three-clawed hand let go.

* * *

She jerked awake from the vertigo of falling. Still disoriented from the dream, it took Ashley a few seconds to gain bearing on her surroundings. _I don't remember that alarm clock in my cabin—oh. Right.  
_  
Shepard's elbow was serving as her pillow, which she sank back into with a languid sigh. His even breathing indicated he was deep in sleep, though his eyelashes twitched and his brow would sporadically crease. _He must be having a nightmare, too._

Ash leaned over to kiss his neck and settled back into the bed. _I like this_ _dream better than that other one. Do I have to wake up from this dream_ , was the last thought her mind allowed before drifting back to sleep.

* * *

Inhaling with a sharp gasp, Shepard's eyes flew open. Even though flames were still burning in the afterimage of his nightmare, the lazily rolling stars overhead in the skylight were calming. As was the sleepy smile of Ash resting peacefully on his shoulder, the bedsheet tucked around her soft curves. The alarm clock behind her on the end table indicated their arrival at Cronos Station was only a short hour away.

Shepard gritted his teeth in a cringe as he tried to pull his arm from under Ash without disturbing her. He thought he had succeeded until he heard her gentle inhale, then, "Hey. …you okay?" Her voice was foggy with sleep. _I hope she rested up._ _Big day ahead of us. Maybe the last one we'll ever have._

He hunched over the side of the bed, rubbing a hand across his boxer shorts and batting the sheet away from his legs. But he was unwilling to get up just yet. Unwilling to leave her side. He felt ticklish fingertips stroke his left ribs as he muttered, "Having trouble sleeping, I guess."

Ash pulled herself closer to him, her hair falling in waves to caress his shoulder blades. She huskily admitted, "I'm surprised you slept at all with everything going on." Her breath was warm on his neck.

Stifling a yawn, Shepard tried to fight off the little boy in his head with a shake. Always surrounded by ghosts of the past and being burned alive by Shepard's failures. He wanted to say he was sorry, but Ash wouldn't know what he was apologizing for. So he played it off.

"Yeah. All that physical training helped," he teased. Ashley warned him with a crisp "Shepard."

He smiled, leaning into her chest pressed to his back. "Just jitters, I guess," he admitted to nothing in particular.

Ash's chin rested on his strong shoulder as she digested what he said. "'Just jitters,' he says. …you amaze me." Shepard's face turned to hers, his joking smile hardening into concern. "What?"

_'What?' he asks. How does he not know how amazing he is? Obviously I need to do my job better. Next time. …if there is a next time._

… _there better be a next time._

"Nothing," Ash evaded before leaving a kiss on his shoulder. "I love you." _There. I said it. No take backs. Never._

Softening, Shepard's voice became a low intense growl. "You being here… with me. It means everything."

The admission embarrassed Ash a little. _I thought you'd gotten over that earlier. …Shut up. I never was very good at his... Shepardness. How he says these things like they're nothing at all, but everything at the same time. Like it's simple. …It's simple because it is, Williams. It's as simple as you know it is. Because you're here too._

All she managed to say was his name in a pleading, vulnerable voice. Shepard leaned over to shush her, silencing her protests with a lingering kiss. "Shh… I love you." He slid off the bed and padded over to the bathroom. The door clicked shut behind him, and a few seconds later she heard the familiar hiss of water streaming from a showerhead.

Ashley stood up off the bed, dragging the bedsheet behind her like the train of a wedding dress. Why she felt the need to wrap herself in modesty after that evening, she had no idea. Scooping up the pieces of her uniform strewn about the floor, Ash discovered she was missing a glove.

She found the glove errantly tossed on Shepard's desk by his captain's terminal, next to a white cushioned frame with a stand. Inside the frame were Shepard's old dog tags.

Ashley ran shaky fingertips over the scorch marks and etchings, a dozen painful memories of Shepard's death suddenly pricking her forehead. She pulled the tags along with the metal necklace off the frame and hefted their weight and listened to faint jingle of metal on metal.

She was so immersed in her memories that she didn't hear the shower turn off, nor the bathroom door open.

"Liara returned them to me."

Ash jerked in response to Shepard's voice, and her face burned. _Why do I feel guilty?_ She was frozen to the spot as he walked over, a towel wrapped around his waist while his face still glistened from the shower steam.

Shepard took the tags from her, ran his thumb over them thoughtfully, then stretched the metal circle of cord in front of Ashley. It took a few seconds before she understood what the gesture meant.

"They belong to you," he said softly as Ash ducked her head. The cord draped over her hair and the tags settled above her breasts. Shepard tenderly swept a hand behind her long hair, pulling it up so the cord rested against her skin. He pressed his fingertips to where the dog tags sat above Ashley's heart, and they stood for a moment, unable to look away from each other.

Finally, Shepard left a light kiss on Ash's forehead then headed to his armor locker. Just before Ash followed suit with a shower, she clutched at the tags and prayed to God once more. For Earth. For Shepard. For Liara. Because she couldn't pray for one without praying for all the others.

_…Thank you, Liara. Shepard. God. For this. For everything._


	9. Greater Than We Know: FOB

"Oh my God, Sar. I just… can't believe it!" Ashley exclaimed again into the comm.

"Well, I can't believe you're on Earth right now, Ash!" Her little sister's shimmering blue holographic form peered out at her, trying to see past her vid for any glimpse of London.

"Don't get excited, Sarah. It's …bad. But we're gonna give the Reapers hell." Her hands clasped in prayer, Ash tried to switch the conversation back to good news. "How far along are you?"

"Nine weeks. I just… I'm still in shock," Sarah Williams-Palmer trailed off, her hand going to her stomach, though no trace of pregnancy marred the flat surface. Yet. "It's a miracle, sis. Nothing short of a miracle. I'm just… so happy he's still with me. I get to keep part of him with me forever." Sarah's eyes glistened with fresh tears again.

Ashley's clasped hands surrendered their place at her chin to touch her lapels. They pulled on the metal cord of Shepard's dog tags sitting next to her Lieutenant Commander ones against her chest. _A part of him._

"I hope you're keeping my future niece or nephew safe, Sar. Where are you guys headed? When I talked to Mom a few hours ago she said you were getting a flight change request from the Alliance."

Sarah's hologram turned behind her to confirm with another voice out of sight, then she shook her head. "We're actually… headed to the Terminus Systems. If you can believe it. The Alliance has been broadcasting that Battlespace report on Sanctuary every half hour it seems like. They said with the galactic strike to retake Earth, they want everyone out of vulnerable systems nearby. They said geth-controlled space was safest. Can you believe it? We're running towards geth?"

 _I can, but I can't_ , Ashley mused inwardly. She and Sarah briefly discussed what the Alliance was telling them, what the gossip was on the war, and how the family was doing on the run. _Worried about you, of course_ , Sarah reiterated over and over to her big sister.

Their sign-off was reluctant and emotional. Neither Williams sister wanted to admit this could be the last time they would speak to each other. Ashley was already exhausted from talking to Abby, Lynn and her mother. Trying to keep it together for the fourth time was almost too much for her.

They said their I-love-yous and prayers and then the holographic comm winked off. Ash inhaled deeply to keep the tears from spilling (again) in front of the stoic comms specialist then headed for the door. Glancing at the time on her Omni-tool, Ashley idly wondered where Shepard was. He'd remained at the FOB landing pad with Major Coats to talk shop while the rest of the Normandy ground crew dispersed amongst the base to see where they could add value.

Ash had left James with a group of soldiers on weapon detail while Tali and Garrus had pressed upward to the command center to consult with their respective leaders. A human medic had beckoned Liara to one of the makeshift triage areas to consult on some asari wounded. EDI immersed her mech body in tapping away at computer terminals, aligning the Normandy's system with both the ground and orbital forces.

And Javik—"Watch where you're going, human!" Jumping back from where she had nearly collided with the surly Prothean outside the comm center, Ashley tried to regain her composure. _I don't want_ _ **him**_ _to see me cry and start chiding me about weakness._

But his four eyes were strangely soft. "I heard you speak to your family, Lieutenant Commander." She waited for a follow-up, but that was how he held conversations: blunt observations laced with disdain. Unable to handle the awkward silence, Ash decided to take the bait and attempt civil dialogue.

"Yea. Just… saying what needs to be said. Just in case."

"But if it is truly goodbye, the Reapers will come for them. There is no goodbye in this kind of war." _Well, aren't we a ray of sunshine_.

She glowered at Javik for his brusque manner. He was immune to her disapproval, though his additional thought was almost… _sad?_ "There was no farewell in my time. We were born into failure. We did not have funerals or mourn our dead. It was a waste of time."

Ash chewed her lip, curious about how she got into this sort of conversation with this particular crew member. "It's never a waste of time to get closure. Otherwise you're reliving the pain over and over, forever. I… didn't get closure when Shepard died. I'm not making the same mistake with my family. Or anyone else I care about."

His layered, rumbling accent continued thoughtfully, "That is the difference between you and I. I am Vengeance. I cradle my pain to inflict it upon the Reapers. It is my weapon. My strength. You are burdened by it. I have seen it."

Ash raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms at his blanket judgment. Seeing her irritation, Javik had a moment of surprising clarity and empathy. He raised his palms, his three fingers begging for truce. "You misunderstand me, human. I was paying you a …compliment." That last word was said through gritted alien teeth.

"I'm breathless to hear how that was a compliment."

The Prothean gestured to the cloudy sky around them, at the bursts of light from gunfire in the distance. "You are burdened by grief but motivated by it as well. You suffer but continue. I read your history on one of your primitive terminals. I know of your family legacy of war and failure. You continue where most would give up. It is …admirable. Foolish and naïve, but admirable." _…and there it is. I was wondering when the insult would come back. We were getting dangerously close to a group hug._

"I have spoken to the Commander about his role in this war. You have one as well. In my people's terms, Shepard is an avatar of Victory, of heroism and leadership. You, as the mate of the Shepard, would be an avatar of Valor. You do not always succeed, but your determination is essential for Victory."

The title stunned Ashley, as did the casual mention of her as Shepard's "mate." _I guess we weren't as secretive as I thought._ She grasped for words. "I—I… thank you, Javik."

Never one to accept gratitude, Javik simply bowed his oblong head and turned away, heading for the command central up the street. _Discussion over, huh?_ _Lovely chatting with you. Let's do tea and scones next Tuesday._

Leaning against the crumbling wall outside the comm station, Ash was so absorbed in what Javik said that she didn't see Shepard coming towards her. It wasn't until the red and white from the N7 stripe on his armor flashed in her peripheral vision did Ash lift her head to meet Shepard's hardened gaze. "Hey."

He softened as he rolled his shoulders in restless agitation. "Hey. How are you holding up?"

Still feeling light and feisty from her chat with Javik, Ashley managed a light shrug and an even lighter tone in spite of the stakes. "Restless. Everything depends on this. Think we have a chance?" Shepard was relieved by her optimism, especially after his painful walk through the ruins of the base.

"There's always hope. It's how we got this far," he smiled, tense and thoughtful. His head tilted in familiarity when he spoke of "we," that he and Ash were in this together.

Ash smiled lightly back, determined ( _see what I did there, Brain? Javik said I was an avatar of this shit. My time to shine!_ ) to be encouraging and optimistic. "And you made it happen, Shepard." Her voice dropped to a more husky, emotional octave. "You're the reason we're here."

They both took a subconscious step closer, eager to converse more intimately than the situation allowed. Shepard's hands stretched out to claim Ashley's while softly admitting, "I've had people like you picking me up and dusting me off when I stumbled." He reluctantly released one hand to trace a thumb over her cheek. "I've lost count of all the times you've saved me."

The intimate gesture caused a flutter in Ash's chest, but she managed to squeak out a sarcastic reply. "Almost as many times as you've saved me, Hero Man." _Get serious, Williams. This is it._ "It always comes down to this, doesn't it?" Shepard nodded somberly, but said nothing.

"It feels like a thousand years since we met on Eden Prime. So much has happened," Ash trailed off breathlessly. _How did we get here?_ "It's hard to figure out how we got here."

Shepard looked down at their hands, his eyes misting with memories. A grim smile tugged on his chiseled cheeks. "You're a survivor, Ash. Always were." _I couldn't do this without you, Ashley. I know I've had doubts about who I was. On Horizon. On the Citadel. On Cronos Station. But I'm sane enough to know when I've stumbled on to a good thing._ _I'm ready if you are._

"I hope you're right," Ash sighed, sadness creeping into her enthusiasm. She ran her teeth over her lower lip, nervous about all the things they weren't saying. It was Shepard who broke the silence, his voice even but slightly emotional in his recitation:

"Boldly they rode and well  
Into the jaws of Death,  
Into the mouth of Hell"

The poem he had quoted so beautifully sank in Ashley's gut, for it referred to incredible bravery through impossible odds, just for the sake of following orders. _No, I can't believe that. I won't._

Shepard smiled wistfully as he leaned away to continue his journey to the command center, but Ash stuck out a hand to stop him. Her voice choked with emotion and she barely got out a whisper.

"I don't want you to go."

She latched on to Shepard's chest armor and guided him back to the safety of her lips where they desperately clung for several long moments, unwilling to break away. His gloved hands explored her back while she clutched at his shoulders and neck, desperate to fuel their kiss for as long as possible. They pulled away slowly, with regret, their eyes boring in the other. Unwilling to look away.

"I love you, Shepard." _It was so easy to say now. At the end._

"I love you, too," he returned, just as smoothly. _Natural_.

Her hands held his, so reluctant to let go. A smile tugged at the left side of his mouth as he finally backed away again. "You ready?"

A deep sigh accompanied "…I'm ready." Ash stepped back, the distance between them a chasm of professionalism once more. His face returned to Commander Mode as he strode past her.

"Then let's get it done, and go home."

Ash exhaled a macabre laugh, appreciating Shepard remembering the words she'd used to reassure him back on the Normandy. "Aye, aye …Captain." _My Captain._

She followed his silhouette picking through the rubble of the FOB, refusing to look away until he ventured out of sight. And even after, she stood there, going over their goodbye in her mind.

_Did I say everything I wanted—needed to say? I think so. I just… hope it's not the end. It can't be. It won't._

Her mind wandered back to Shepard's words as she checked over her Revenant assault rifle for the fifteenth time, killing time before the final push. Her Omni-tool glowed with a new message to regroup at the command center with Admiral Anderson in five minutes. _Almost ready to end this thing._

 _We can do this, Williams. We made it this far._ Ash's hand pressed to her collarbone again, feeling for Shepard's memento once more. She nodded her head, tossed her hair, and shouldered her assault rifle with purpose. _I think this is a special occasion that needs a special verse, Brain. But what?_

_I know just the thing:_

_Enough, if something from our hands have power_   
_To live, and act, and serve the future hour;_   
_And if, as toward the silent tomb we go,_   
_Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent dower,_   
_We feel that we are greater than we know._

Ash closed her eyes and took four slow, cleansing breaths to shut out the world for a few moments. It started to work until James Vega clapped her on the shoulder and told her to move out. Ashley nodded.

"I'll be there in a minute."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shepard quotes The Charge of the Light Brigade by Tennyson in his (Bioware) goodbye.  
> Ashley quotes After-Thought by Tennyson in her (my) goodbye.


	10. With All Due Respect: London

Ashley struggled to get control of her erratic breathing and jumping nerves. She was wracked with adrenaline from the insane onslaught at the Thanix missile battery. Her hands spasmed around the grip of her assault rifle, hungry for more action. _Easy now. Let's save some for later._

Each jostling bump in the bouncing Mako echoed the stomp of brutes. The high-pitched hum of ships soaring overheard reminded Ash of banshee shrieks. _I'm going to have some serious PTSD when this is all over. The Alliance docs are going to have another field day_ , she scowled inwardly.

Also still panting from the Reaper battle, Liara set a comforting hand on Ash's twitching elbow. Appreciative of the gesture, Ash admitted, "You were amazing out there, T'Soni." _Damn, has she ever improved since Saren. Back on Feros, she could barely hold a pistol. Now?_ "When you knocked off that one banshee's barriers with a warp and hit those two marauders behind 'er with two shots to the head? I got chills."

The asari smiled demurely at the praise. "Even us stodgy information brokers have to get out from behind our desks once in awhile, Ashley." _And she even makes jokes now. The miracles just keep on comin'. We might win this thing after all. I should buy a lottery ticket, too. See if this luck holds._

"I wanted to thank you for your timely rescue when that brute had me pinned down. It cut through my barrier before I could even react—" Ashley held up a hand to stop Liara's explanation.

"Liara. You don't need to thank me or apologize for anything. We're soldiers. We watch each other's backs. You save my life, I save yours. It's just the way it works." Ashley's simple words accompanied a slanted smile at Liara, which the asari gratefully returned. The doctor's sapphire eyes even managed a mischievous crinkle as she joked, "And Shepard saves everyone."

"Damn straight," Ashley replied just as she noticed her hands had finally stopped shaking. Major Coats had been silent and impassive at Ash's elbow, staring at the wall in presumably a thoughtful daze. But his head turned at a voice at the other end of the Mako.

"From here on in, it's a straight shot to the beam," Admiral Anderson summarized. He adjusted his ear piece and military hat every now and then in an attempt to calm his own restless nerves.

 _Always a ray of sunshine_ , Major Coats grumbled, "A straight shot with Reapers trying to crush us along the way." Coats tapped his gloved fingers together in a timed motion. "We just need to get a handful of troops through," Anderson replied optimistically.

"Only a handful, huh?" Ash asked as she shook her head. _It's both really hopeful and really depressing that it's that simple and that hard._ She exchanged an anxious glance with Liara. The asari chewed her cheek but said nothing.

The Admiral sighed, leaning on his knees. "We knew this was going to be a gamble at best."

Shepard stood up from his seat and steadied himself with a hand on the safety bar along the ceiling. He looked over the set of soldiers before him, their expressions tense with guarded hope.

Anderson's face was raked with wrinkles, prematurely aging from months of constant stress. Major Coats, next in command behind Admiral Anderson, had deep black circles around his eyes. The Major still hadn't recovered from near-starvation when the Reapers first occupied London, for he had been hell-bent on sniping every husk that showed its face around the Palace of Westminster before finally retreating in defeat.

Even Ashley and Liara looked grave. Shepard had been diligent not to let his anxiety show while brutes, cannibals and banshees surrounded them from all sides at the missile battery. But his professional Commander façade wavered, for he knew there were hundreds, _thousands_ , of battles just like that one being waged. On Thessia. Palaven. Sur'kesh. Tuchanka. _Everywhere_.

In that moment, Shepard appreciated the two companions he'd brought to face this hell at his side. "Can't think of anyone else I'd rather do this with," he said softly as he searched their faces, desperate to memorize them.

_Liara. She probably wants more than anything to be on Thessia. With her own people, fighting this war for her home. She could even run and use her Shadow Broker resources to try and hide like the Protheans on Ilos. But she wouldn't. She could live long enough to see the Reapers leave and she chose to be here.  
_   
_Ashley. No stranger to hopeless fights. She lost her squad on Eden Prime to a relentless enemy. She kept fighting even though she expected no help. She would have stood her ground and fought that war singlehandedly. I couldn't do this without her. I won't._

"Nobody does it alone," Ashley agreed confidently as she stood up, practically reading Shepard's thoughts. _There's no place I'd rather be_ , her squinted eyes and tight-lipped smile said. Shepard nodded in silent acknowledgment.

Major Coats' hand raised to his ear. We're here. Anderson stood heavily, but rolled his shoulders with a deep breath. "All right, everyone. This is it." No sooner had the words left his mouth than the truck lurched. Coats stumbled forward, but a hand from Liara steadied the Major.

The gangplank of the vehicle dropped down and the crew hustled to the edge of a brightly lit ravine. About a kilometer away, a glowing beam flanked by metal obelisks cut through the night sky. Anderson swore as the ground rumbled again. A massive Reaper capital ship landed in the distance, challenging the ground forces to a final stand.

 _Harbinger_ , Shepard knew. It was a silhouette he'd seen many times over the last year. The Collector Base. The Alpha Relay. Always joined by taunting that it was pointless to resist. This time there were no warnings. Harbinger simply sat and waited for its victims to walk into oblivion while sounding a pulsing foghorn of defiance.

"We gotta move!" Anderson shouted. There was no time for coordinated efforts or studying sitreps. It was do or die. Shepard's hand yanked the assault rifle off his back as he led the charge while Ashley and Liara were steps behind.

Anderson's voice barked orders into their comms while other soldiers swarmed in around them. The Hammer squads all abandoned their tentative footholds near the beam to make a full on assault. Reaper forces hiding in entrenched positions gleefully pounced as their enemies ran into their waiting claws.

"There's just no end to them!" Liara breathlessly shouted before curling her fist and sidewinding a singularity into a pocket of cannibals. Ashley's Revenant sprayed the tumbling Reapers with carefully sighted bullets, ensuring the five creatures were dead before meeting solid ground again.

Both women kept even with each other during the tense run, clinging to the battle rhythm they'd established upon setting foot on Earth. Other than following Shepard's long shadow ahead, they could barely keep focus with everything shaking and exploding around them. Liara's barrier covered them both while Ash went into marine auto-pilot, letting her instincts guide her rifle barrel to glowing synthetic targets.

Shepard's charge over highway rubble and through Reaper cannon fire was made more difficult because he couldn't stop himself from glancing behind him. Even with the hell blazing around him, Shepard was only reassured to press on when he spotted blue in his peripheral vision (either of Ashley's striking Spectre uniform or Liara's azure complexion).

The air was thick with ash and even through his helmet Shepard could smell charred flesh. Marauder bullets peppered the ground and pinged his kinetic shields while Reaper ships cut scorching trails through London. The brilliant white teleportation beam standing at the edge of this inferno seemed close enough to touch but was always just out of reach.

A blast (from Harbinger, maybe?) struck one of the rumbling Mako trucks and sent the vehicle rolling straight for Shepard. _Over or under?_ Taking a split second to decide, he dropped to one knee in a crouching slide just as the Mako bounced in a low arc barely clearing his head.

The next vehicle wasn't so gentle. Shepard dodged into a roll, but the second truck collided with the first behind him. The last thing Shepard saw before the vehicle crashed into the ground was Ashley and Liara's looks of terror.

Suddenly the beam became an afterthought. Propelling off the ground, Shepard reversed his momentum and pounded back up the slope just as the fallen Mako burst into flames.

"No!" was all he managed to shout into the darkness, while his mind fell into a stream of prayers that all blended together. _Where is she? Where are they? Please,_ he asked no one and everyone.

Shepard vaulted over the upside-down cockpit and spotted Ashley struggling to stand a few meters away. Dark red flecked her uniform and her right hand pressed to a growing stain over her abdomen. _No,_ he told the darkness again. Liara was stumbling for cover behind the wrecked truck, her lab coat speckled with purple blood and charred bits.

Ashley's dark mane touched the ground as she tried to fetch her discarded Revenant rifle. _C'mon, Ulysses. We've got a war to win. I can't go on without my boom stick._ Bullets pelted the rubble around her in orange bursts. One grazed her shoulder in warning, which gave her pause to ignore her soldier instinct to save her weapon.

A red N7 stripe suddenly filled her vision as rough hands wrapped around her waist. Ash was dimly aware of Shepard yelling "Just leave it!" before being dragged into a shadow. She blinked twice, roused from her brief shock, as Shepard's face filled her murky vision. She inhaled tensely through her teeth when the Commander touched a hand to her leg. His glove came back wet with more blood. _When did that one happen?_ _I'm just falling apart on this little jog through London._

Liara crouched over Ashley, her Omni-tool flickering as the interface probed both of their systems for injuries. The asari distributed what remained of the team's medi-gel to Ashley's leg and her own bleeding arm. Her dark blue lips pursed in a winded exhale as painkillers flooded her system. But further scrapes cut jagged swathes over her pebbled flesh and dark bruises masked internal injuries from the blast of the Mako explosion.

 _They're both in bad shape_ , the Commander's mind realized. _Everyone is in bad shape_ , he amended as he finally scanned the battle field. The kilometer trek to the Citadel transport was a massacre. Gunships smoldered, convoys lay uselessly in pits dug by powerful Reaper cannons, and soldiers moaned or lay still as Reaper ground forces flanked them from all sides, from above and below.

"It's not hopeless, Shepard." Ashley's voice pulled his eyes away from the carnage. Even injured and propped against the Mako wreckage, her brown eyes were bright with confidence. He extended the hand that wasn't pressed to her thigh wound to her forehead to wipe a spot of blood away. Ash closed her eyes and leaned into his warmth. For just a split second she was back on the Normandy, in his cabin, in his bed, in his arms. She liked it there.

"I didn't say anything," Shepard returned weakly. She saw through him. "You didn't have to. I know that look." _Of course you do_ , his mouth twitched in a weak smile. He reluctantly pulled his hand away from Ash's face to touch his ear. Joker barked into his comm about the dangers of an evac, but agreed to drop everything and disengage from the fight upstairs.

A laser burst hummed over their heads, striking a short distance away. All three of them had to turn away from a miserable scream cut short. They hunkered down under the shattered headlights, pressing tightly to the frame for shelter.

"Shepard." Ash's voice came from his shoulder, for Shepard had stretched an arm out to shield her further. Just a few hours ago, he had hugged her close to him in his cabin in the same way. He loosened his tight grip to glance at the sky. _Where the hell is the Normandy?_

"Whatever happens, I just want you to know—" He clapped his hand over Ashley's mouth. He wasn't going to do this now. "You're going to make it," Shepard interrupted. The pain in her eyes briefly lightened to calm as she softly joked, "Fine then. If you want to hear this, you'll have to come back to me." He wanted to laugh, but couldn't.

The loud whir of engines drowned out any further conversation. The Normandy's white and blue profile broke through the polluted fog to hover just a few meters away. Outfitted marines rushed down the lowering landing gear to offer suppressing fire. Shepard's ear comm lit up again with Joker's loud voice, this time warning that the ship couldn't stay stationary for more than about 20 seconds.

Throwing Ashley's arm over his shoulder, Shepard shoved them both at the waiting ship with Liara close behind. The doctor's white coat swished by as Shepard paused at the foot of the cargo door. "Here, take her," he gruffly called to Liara, who settled into a firm foothold on the slanted door before stretching out her hands for Ashley.

"Shepard!" Ashley groaned in protest, furious that she was being pushed around against her will. The sharp pain in her side forced her to submit to the asari's surprisingly strong grip. Shepard backed down the plank, pointing emphatically to the sky. "You gotta get out of here."

Her teeth clenched in pain and more than a little rage, Ashley wheezed, "With all due respect, Commander…"

Virmire sparked in Shepard's mind as the faces of Gunnery Chief Williams and Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko swam by, accompanied by a snippet of conversation regarding another fight through impossible odds _. "With all due respect, Chief," Alenko started to say before an interruption from Ash. "Why is it whenever someone says 'with all due respect,' they really mean 'kiss my ass'?"_

"Don't argue with me," he growled harshly. Time was almost up. He didn't want to see the Normandy share the fate of those Kodiaks he'd seen on Earth a few short months ago. He didn't need his dreams haunted by any more lost faces. _I won't let her end up a shadow in that damn forest of voices. This ends now._

 _You're not leaving me behind_ , Lieutenant Commander Williams' eyes pleaded. "Damn it, I can do this!" Her voiced trailed off in a breathless gasp. Tears she was adept at suppressing in battle threatened to spill over. _Please, Shepard. Not again. Don't leave me behind again._

"I know you can." Shepard strode back up the walkway, unable to tear his gaze from Ashley's. Her face was etched with pleading, longing, devotion. His shadow crept over her face, but her brown eyes glistened back at him, undimmed even in darkness.

"No matter what happens here today, I'll always love you," he murmured as his hand swept her long hair behind her ear. It was a casual, intimate gesture, one he had longed to do so many times over the years. It was cruel irony that took until now to surrender to it. _And I'm sorry I lied to you, even though you don't know it. I promised myself on the Mako ride I wouldn't do this without you. But ...I can't do it **with** you. I have to know you'll make it out._

"Shepard, I…" _I hate you. Why are you doing this? Please don't do this._ Liara's grip tightened and pulled Ash away from Shepard. She heard Liara's faint shout that they had to go now. She didn't care. She didn't care that Joker echoed it in her earpiece. It was all just an annoying buzz. The ship, the Reapers, Joker, Liara. _They just need to go away. They don't matter._

"I love you, too," Ashley whispered as Shepard pulled away, his face taut with concern. _No. Don't go._ She wanted to run, but the cargo door lurched as it started to raise. Time was up. _You idiot_ , her mind lectured. _You'll slow him down. Do you want him to die again? Because of you? **For** you? Is that what you want?_

Ash's hand stretched out for his, beckoning him to join her on the ship. _Just take my hand. We'll go together. Regroup at the FOB. Find another way in. There's still time. There has to be. We can do this. Together. Always together._

"Together, Shepard. Let's get it done." Even through the strain of her injuries, Ashley refused to retract her offered hand. Even as the ship lifted off the ground. Even as Commander Shepard shouted "Go!" and turned on his heel back towards the beam. Even as he dropped out of sight and all she could see was the inside of the Normandy cargo bay. _We were supposed to do this together._

Knees finally buckling as the last of her adrenaline faded, Ashley collapsed to all fours on the floor. Her flowing hair protected her face in a cage, shielding her wet eyes and panting breaths from the soldiers around her.

Their center of gravity swayed as the Normandy lifted off. Joker's voice boomed through the ship intercom about how close they came to getting blasted and to brace for evasive maneuvers.

"Ashley?" Liara cautiously asked, touching her shoulder. Ashley shook off the hand impetuously as strenuous pain seared her forehead and spread into aftershocks down her body. The hot spots on her side and thigh pulsed outward to send twinges of pain in the lesser wounds on her arm and chest.

"We should've stayed. We should've fought harder. I should've fought harder," Ash quietly lectured the floor. Right now, self-pity was stronger than any pain.

"You need medical attention. We need to go to the med bay. Now." When Ashley shook her off again, Liara paused a second before wrapping the Spectre in a blue biotic glow and lifting her to her feet. The asari was simply too tired to deal with the Lieutenant Commander's grief when there were more urgent matters to attend to, namely the human's blood pooling on the floor.

Two marines shouldered their rifles and came to Ashley's aid, propping her up between them. Ash's chin remained pressed to her collarbone even as strands of hair caught in her mouth or stuck to the wet rivulets on her cheeks. As the awkward group started to make its way toward the elevator, Ash abruptly stopped to whisper a verse.

"The world was never made;  
It will change, but it will not fade.  
So let the wind range;  
For even and morn  
Ever will be  
Through eternity.  
Nothing was born;  
Nothing will die;  
All things will change."

Blue fingers stretched out to pull Ash's head up. They softly caressed her cheeks, wiping away tears and pushing her hair back to its rightful place behind her ears. Ashley sniffed deeply as she finally met Liara's eyes. "This isn't your fault, Ashley. You fought as hard as you could. We all did. It's up to Shepard, now. I believe in him. And so do you."

Liara gestured to the soldiers and together they rode the elevator to deck 3. Dr. Chakwas was waiting at the Crew Deck doors, Omni-tool at the ready, to accept the injured Spectre. It took Ashley's pain-addled mind another minute before she remembered she was the executive officer of the Normandy. Her first order was to route the Hammer comm channel into the med bay so she could track the battle.

Instead of stopping her, Liara offered her information drone's capabilities to boost the signal and layer in as many frequencies as they could for the full picture of the Earth battle below. Just as Ashley dropped on the middle lab table, static crackled into the comm as it connected to Major Coats' accented baritone.

"—God. They're all gone."

A female voice asked, "Did we get anyone to the beam?"

"Negative. Our entire force was decimated."

"Ashley." Liara and Dr. Chakwas both said her name with different levels of concern, but she ignored them both. _No_. It wasn't even denial. It just… wasn't possible. _We didn't come this far to fail. Shepard wouldn't._

Both women tripped over themselves in their attempts to console Ash. "Are you all right?" blended with "How are you doing, Ashley?" She held up a hand to them both, heading off a pointless conversation. "I'll be fine. I have a ship to run. Can I get this wound looked at, or would we rather talk feelings and gossip?" Her sarcasm, laced with a grimace of pain, came off harsher than she intended.

But it had the desired effect. Dr. Chakwas resumed her Omni-tool assessment of Ash while Liara sat under a med table scope to self-diagnose her injuries. Satisfied that her bruising wasn't a sign of deeper trauma, the asari joined Karin in retrieving medi-gel patches and syringes from the cabinets.

The two women, once closely acquainted on the Normandy SR-1, fell back into their easy relationship as they evaluated Ashley. Ash gritted her teeth as anesthetic dimmed the ache in her torso and holographic interfaces applied quick stitches and medi-gel seals. The doctors' professional assessment of all things medical quickly turned into misty-eyed reflection about the Commander.

"We shared another bottle of Serrice ice brandy just last week. I can't believe he's…" Dr. Chakwas trailed off as Liara followed with her own memories. "We had a lovely walk in the park on the Presidium a few weeks ago. There are so many things I wish I'd told him before…"

Unable to take it anymore, Ash angrily rolled herself off the table. _They're talking about him like he's dead._ She zipped up the dress uniform top, not caring that it was still stained with blood and torn in places. Testing her range of motion hesitantly, Ashley twisted and stretched and found her injuries had dulled to an acceptable range of pain. _Won't be running any marathons, but I can run a damn ship._

"Lieutenant Commander, you shouldn't be up so soon after—" Dr. Chakwas was silenced by an upheld palm from Ashley.

" **With all due respect** , Doctors, you don't know what you're talking about. Shepard isn't gone. He's still got a job to do."

_And so do I._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Nothing Will Die" is by Tennyson.


	11. Pray: Push

_Kalahira, mistress of inscrutable depths, I ask forgiveness..._

Dull thumps and high-pitched crashes pressed all around on Shepard, interrupting his brief respite. He cautiously opened an eye that he immediately regretted, as searing light and blurring shapes dipped in and out of view. Closer still, voices murmured in his earpiece that he could barely make sense of, let alone respond to.

"Hammer's wiped out! All forces, retreat!"

 _No retreat. No surrender. …Get up. Assess. Decide. Act. But get up, first. You have to get up, Shepard._ It wasn't his usual Commander Mode in charge anymore. The voice, the determination, it wasn't his. But it was nonetheless familiar.

Obeying, Shepard groaned his way upright. His hands felt like they were on fire and a dull ache in his head competed with throbbing twinges in his chest and legs. Only the soldier in his head could order himself to climb to his feet, take in his surroundings and get going.

_She'd said, "I can do this!" …I know you can, Ash. I know you'd be right here with me, but I couldn't risk it. I'd rather you hate me alive than love me dead._

A Carnifex pistol lay on the ground nearby, its owner half-buried and still under a fallen dropship's wing. The simple act of leaning down, picking up the weapon and checking its heatsink exhausted Shepard. His right hand spasmed and clenched the grip tightly, while his other useless arm served to balance a hunched, loping walk.

__"Tsk. Now what will it take to prove I'm in prime condition, Skipper?"_ ...The beam. It's right there. You can make it. One foot. In front of the other. Double-time, soldier.  
_

The energy drawing off the teleportation beam was a loud, high frequency whine at this distance, but was just uncomfortable enough to keep Shepard's heavily-lidded eyes open. Suddenly, three husks shambled out from behind the rubble of a nearby Mako, apparently catching Shepard's scent. Just lifting the pistol was agony for the Commander, but he steadied his pained breaths to sight and fell one enemy after the other. The last husk was only inches from Shepard's chest before an incendiary round to the skull stopped it.

Agony stabbed Shepard's gut as a shadow crossed his vision. Further back, a skeletal turian marauder reloaded the heatsink in its SMG. Staggering, it took Shepard precious seconds to balance his aim while his left hand pressed to the fresh wound in his abdomen. A hardier foe, it took Shepard far more than two shots to first strike shoulders and hands then finish the creature off with a final bullet to the throat.

Shepard wasn't sure how close he got to the beam before his pistol fell from numb fingers. His legs put up a tremendous fight simply lifting up and setting down, one then the other. He didn't so much as walk as fall, head-first, into the wide landing pad where the transporter beam sat. _Take it easy, Skipper. You made it. Just a little further, then we can go home_ , a comforting voice consoled.

He briefly saw Earth getting smaller and smaller below his feet, but didn't have the energy to turn and look where he was going above into the brightening light. _How did I get here?_ was the last thing Shepard wondered before he blacked out again.

* * *

_Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name..._

Ash wasn't really sure why that particular prayer leapt into her mind, and in formal old English no less. She'd been mentally praying a lot lately. But it provided a bit of comfort as she hobbled out of the med bay with Liara yelling behind her to wait. Thankfully, Dr. Chakwas had other patients to care for so she abandoned the lecture poised on her lips and turned back to the three other cots filled with groaning soldiers.

Pausing outside the med bay, Ashley's Omni-tool glowed to life as she tapped back into the Alliance comm feed. Clipped sentences suddenly popped into her earpiece, before a shout drowned them all out.

"Hammer's wiped out! All forces, retreat!"

Ashley felt that comm's desperate female voice deep in her gut. The dull ache of her injuries briefly flared back into unbearable territory as hope was overridden by despair. _Rise above it, Williams. Anderson wanted the Normandy to be the Alliance's mobile command center, and that's exactly what they're going to get._ A few deep breaths pushed the searing fingers back into mental containment, though Ashley's limp was more noticeable.

Every operative running through the crew deck paused upon seeing Ashley's disheveled appearance. The Lieutenant Commander's blue Spectre jacket was torn in jagged strips across her midriff, exposing a bloodied undershirt. Her tall officer's boots were stained and the right thigh had medi-gel-soaked gauze wrapped tightly around it. She waved them away with a challenging glare.

_We still have the Crucible. Shepard is still down there. "There's always hope. It's how we got this far." Copy that, Commander._

Liara T'Soni once more shouted for her to return to the med bay, which Ashley again ignored. Instead, she swiped a finger over her Omni-tool to page Joker up on Deck 2.

"What's the status, Joker?" A bearded face popped onto the small handheld screen, but its eyes were focused elsewhere. "Picked up Garrus and Tali back at the FOB, though they headed to the war room to coordinate their own fleets. They're lucky we don't stick them with long-distance charges... That quantum entanglement comm ain't cheap, y'know."

"We'll send the turians and quarians a bill when the war is over," Ashley sidestepped, both Joker's grumbling and literally Liara as the asari again attempted to stop her. "What about the other ground crew?"

"EDI, her body, I mean, is already back in the co-pilot chair. Prothy is probably sulking in his quarters on Engineering because he didn't get to ride a Reaper like a cowboy." Ashley swept her right hand over the green holo to summon the elevator, but kept her eyes on Joker.

"What about James?" A pause from Joker. "He wouldn't leave Earth. He said he wouldn't abandon it again." Ashley chewed her lip, sad about Vega's absence but more sad she didn't think of it first. _Maybe because you got shot four times, Williams? Because Shepard made you? ...Shut up, Brain. I get it. At least Vega's got Franchesca. I put enough firepower in that shotgun to make it practically illegal in Citadel space. He could take down a thresher maw with that damn thing. He'll be okay,_ she prayed.

"Ashley!" Liara's voice interrupted Ash's train of thought. _Fine, T'Soni. You caught me_. "Joker, I'll be up in a minute to organize sitreps with Specialist Traynor on Hackett's strike on the Citadel. Williams out." Ash swept her fingertips over the Omni-tool interface, closing the comm channel. "I don't have time for this, Liara. I can walk, so I can work. They need us down there." _And so does Shepard._

"I was not going to force you back into the med bay. By the Goddess, you're as stubborn as Shepard sometimes. I know better," the asari crossed her arms.

"Oh... then what do you need, T'Soni?" The elevator opened, but Ashley wasn't fast enough to dart through it to escape Liara. The Shadow Broker blocked Ash's access to the elevator controls.

"I have ...something for you." Ashley raised her eyebrows, her expression asking what she couldn't say without biting sarcasm, _Well? What is it?_

"When I said for farewell to Shepard at the operations base, I joined my consciousness to his," Liara held up her hand to defend her actions before Ash's mind could jump to several conclusions, none of them pleasant. "It's not what you think, Ashley. It was merely an asari goodbye, a custom."

"Fine. I believe you. Explain it to me in small words so my little human mind can understand," Ash couldn't help angrily retorting. _She doesn't deserve that, Williams. …Hey Brain, she spent months jumping into Shepard's head back on the SR-1, and need I remind you the way she looked at him? And still does, sometimes? …You owe her the benefit of the doubt._

Sighing, Ashley pressed her fingertips to the bridge of her nose, then smoothed them over her eyebrows. "…I'm sorry, Liara. I do believe you. Please, tell me what went on." The asari just looked so damned earnest that Ash felt briefly ashamed for her accusation. Briefly. _…I never claimed I was good at being mature, Brain._

"I offered him some of my memories as a gift, a thank-you for all Shepard had done for me. But he left me something in return, to give to you." Ash waited a moment, hoping for further explanation, "…I don't understand."

"He had memories... Things he meant for you but was unable to say," Liara's voice was thick with emotion but her face was impassive. Even after three years, she struggled to restrain the affection she'd developed for Commander Shepard. It still bounced tumultuously between deep respect and quiet attraction. And the last thing she wanted to do was lose that grip in front of Ashley. "He …asked me to give them to you, in case he—"

Ash cut Liara off. "He's not dead." _We're not going through this again. Shepard is down there and we're going to find him._

"I want to believe that, too," Liara sadly agreed. "But all the same, I would like to give you what he shared with me." She held a blue hand over Ashley's that hovered above the call button for the CIC. "Please, Ashley. Trust me. It will only take a moment. Joker can handle the Normandy for a moment."

"...Show me."


	12. Pray: Pull

… _Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven…_

"Embrace etern—"

"Wait," Ash interrupted. "I don't want to create Scuttlebutt fodder when some crewmember calls the elevator and sees your freaky black eyes." _Admit it, Williams. You also don't want Liara poking around in your head. Especially regarding your opinions of Shepard's smokin' hot—NOT NOW, BRAIN._

Liara took a step back, though she didn't miss the masked panic in Ashley's face. "I don't think you have to worry about rumors spreading that you and I are in an …illicit relationship. Although, Glyph **can** be a bit possessive and jealous. Don't be surprised if that drone shocks you the next time it sees you." The asari's deadpan delivery actually made Ashley laugh.

Liara reached over and tapped the bold "1" on the wall. "I believe your …familiarity… with the Captain's Cabin makes it an optimal location for …privacy." It was a neutral yet loaded statement that Ashley chewed over during the ride up. _Are you surprised that she knows about you and Shepard spending the night together? …well, I didn't expect her Shadow Brokering to include tracking my comings and goings from Shepard's room or how many times I use the bathroom._

The door opened to EDI's dulcet voice, "Level 1, Captain's Cabin." Striding over to the inner door to Shepard's cabin, Liara reached for the privacy lock. Ashley gritted her teeth and shook her head to physically push away the niggling voice in her mind. _…so… Liara knows Shepard's privacy combination …We're not doing this now, try again later._

"Wait. Here is fine. You said it would just take a second." _Plus I don't want to go in there and see it empty after all we… SHEPARD. IS. ALIVE._

"Very well. Please just relax. Breathe normally. Close your eyes and clear your mind as best you can," Liara patiently requested. "It is not unpleasant, but a melding can be disorienting the first time." Seeing Ash's uncertain expression, Liara held up her hands defensively. "Please, Ashley. I promise I have no intention of exploring your mind or invading your privacy. For an asari, to enter another's mind without permission is an unforgivable insult."

Ashley chewed on her lower lip a moment. Suddenly the Normandy bucked as a blast hit the kinetic barrier, but curiosity was slightly more urgent than duty. _Just get it over with and get back downstairs_. "I'm ready. Do it."

The world receded to darkness before Ashley could even finish hearing "Embrace eternity." And it wasn't just disorienting, it was like drowning on the inside. Ash was at the epicenter of a galaxy of voices, colors and emotions, all shouting at once. Liara's presence while entering this swirling chaos had disappeared and Ashley flailed about, unable to comprehend what she was seeing. There was no translation implant here to interpret asari memories and language, it was all just beautiful noise and whispers and somethings and nothings from someone else's life.

" _I would advise against shaking me off in the future, Miss Williams. As well as charging blindly into someone else's mind."_ Liara was suddenly at Ash's side, and the galaxy receded to the background, more like the map on the CIC than just a random night sky of stars. _"Yes, I organized it this way on purpose. It was …comforting… this way."_

_You can hear what I'm thinking?_

" _Of course. …Not everything, just what is on the surface. You are free to conceal things from me, which I might detect but not pursue out of respect. …Though experience tells me you have little trouble hiding what you are thinking."_

_She's saying you have no filter, Williams. ...Shut up, Brain, I get it._

" _Do you normally converse with yourself in third person?"_

… _ **Anyway**_ _, this is all delightfully weird and I'm happy I can finally check 'poke around an asari's mind' off my bucket list, but I'm here about Shepard._ The thought of the Commander sent an icy tendril through the air, though Ash wasn't certain if it was her own pang of longing or Liara's.

At Ashley's prompting, the brilliant randomness of the map glided closer. Different arms spun at different rates and star systems glowed enticingly. Ash reached out for a glowing set of orbs that pulsed and whispered with soft female voices, but Liara stopped her. _"That is… personal._

_Here is what I wanted to show you."_ The constellations shifted to form a conjoined series of points. The stars spun together to form an oval-shaped portal that enveloped Ashley and Liara. The darkness returned, but was soon replaced by a hazy biotic energy. Blinking a few times cleared some of the haze, though it was strange to be looking back at the same galaxy. _Didn't we do this already?_

Ashley looked down at herself and gasped to see a white lab coat over blue hands. Her right hand was pressed intimately around an armored bicep. She followed the arm up to see Shepard smiling sadly back at her. _Shepard? I knew you were alive._

" _He can't hear you. You are now inside my memories of him, from a few hours ago."_ Ashley couldn't see Liara but knew the asari was beside her and all around her, somehow guiding this strange ride. It was odd seeing the blurred blue of nose and cheeks in her peripheral vision. Ahead, the galaxy was receding once more along with a fading alto voice, _"Good night, Little Wing. I will see you again with the dawn."_

" _That was beautiful. Thank you, Liara. You've been a good friend."_ Shepard's voice reverberated around and through Ashley. She wondered if it was her or Liara reacting strongly, but she felt her pulse quicken nonetheless. Shepard was pensive for a moment, and turned to look at Ash/Liara.

" _Can I ask you a favor?"_ A thrill of hope sparked in Ash/Liara's chest, and it purred even deeper when he continued, _"Something tells me that you're going to make it out of here. You don't give yourself enough credit, Liara. You're a fighter, a survivor."_ But the purr ebbed when Shepard turned away from her.

" _That's kind of you, Shepard. I know I have not always been there for you. I would like to assist in any way that I can."_ Ash heard Liara's lilting voice through her mouth, sincere and patient.

" _If it's possible, can I share some of my memories with you?"_ His expression was painfully sad. _"I don't know if there's a happy ending in this for me. It'd be nice to know that someone sees me the way I see myself. Just …Shepard."_

Shepard's words twisted and stabbed at Ashley. She suddenly hated that their intimacy wasn't directed at her. _"Wait, Ashley. It's not what you think. Please, keep watching,"_ Liara pleaded in Ash's head.

_"I would be honored,"_ Ash/Liara nodded gracefully. The landscape of stars shifted as Shepard took control. They molded together and hardened, creating a familiar sight to a Williams. An over-sized Alliance-issue locker sat in the blackness, illuminated like a set in a theater play. A menacing forest of shadows also shimmered around the outskirts of the locker, sometimes pushing forward and sometimes retreating.

_"You've been practicing,"_ Liara's voice hummed around Ashley. _"Back on the original Normandy, your mind was an absolute mess. The only reason I could find the cipher and Prothean beacon at all was because they were the voices shouting loudest in your chaotic mind."_

" _I had a lot of lonely nights on the SR-2 to fill,"_ Shepard agreed. _"Trying to make sense of things seemed like a good way to pass the time. …can't guarantee you won't still get lost in here, though."_ Ash/Liara chuckled ruefully.

The locker opened. Inside was nothing more than blackness, but on the door were several picture frames, a toy Carnifex pistol and his N7 tags. The images on the frames cycled through men and women Ash mostly didn't recognize, most in either Alliance uniforms or casual dress with N7 tags or tattoos.

Sometimes the images flickered from their frozen smiles to terrible scenes of their deaths. Gasping inwardly, Ash recognized the crooked grin of Kaidan Alenko before it switched to Shepard's last sight of Kaidan arming the Virmire nuke. _"I felt the same way when I saw it, Ashley,"_ Liara acknowledged in Ashley's head.

" _I'm a-sorry, asari,"_ Shepard paused, savoring his terrible joke. He hadn't noticed that Ash/Liara was focused on the door of people he'd failed over the years. Never forget. _"I don't have a galaxy of memories over hundreds of years. It all fits in a neat little box. But I make do. Now, let's see if I can show you some things…"_

Inside the locker, the blackness retreated to show an almost holo-like vid player that fast-forwarded and lurched awkwardly. Liara's voice through Ash's mouth calmly reiterated for Shepard to embrace eternity, breathe deeply and focus. Sometimes they caught first-person glimpses of children, mostly rowdy boys, that Shepard apparently got into scuffles with as a kid. The emotions were stronger than the images: gleeful happiness, pangs of longing, immature anger, sadness. A few teenage girls brought awkward sensations of lust, heartache, giddy wonder and arrogance.

The scene finally stilled to reveal a long line of teenage boys mixed with a few men. A long-haired boy with one green and one blue eye bounced excitedly into view. _"Happy birthday, Shep. Ready to sign your life away for a couple years and see the galaxy?"_ Shepard's voice, not quite as deep but still as authoritative, warmly replied. _"Just a few years, Malcolm? You don't want to be an Admiral with a dorky hat and a command all your own someday?"_ The image panned over to a Rear Admiral glowering at the boys, who guffawed quietly and paced ahead in the enlistment line.

" _I'll leave the dorky hat to you, Shep, since you can't half-ass anything. You'll probably bust your ass in boot, be the youngest N7 ever and save the galaxy from giant flying thresher maws or some shit. Then you'll have a heart attack at 30 from screwing 3 of the hottest Fornax stars at once,"_ Malcolm smirked while a warm amused glow briefly tinted the screen orange.

" _Well, at least I have something to look forward to, Mal. If you're not dead from shooting yourself in the balls on the first day of boot, maybe I'll let you come to my galaxy-saving after-parties,"_ Shepard tossed back irreverently. The two boys continued razzing each other back and forth before finally reaching the falsely cheerful officers at the end of the table. Holos of all the latest Alliance cruisers and uniformed officers carrying shiny guns paraded by. An unremarkable man with a scar on his nose and a haggard smile presented datapads awaiting their signatures before the memory faded to black.

" _So that's how it all started,"_ Ash/Liara replied. _"Not with a bang, but with foul language and the dashed hopes of an orgy,"_ Shepard said sardonically, not missing a beat. Ash remembered seeing that one green and one blue eye on Shepard's locker door, though the hair had been trimmed and blood spattered the boy's temple from a bullet to the head.

Distant battlefields swam by, accompanied by dull voices and powerful emotions. While it was a familiar sight for Ashley, Liara had been overwhelmed by Shepard's battle memories. Some of it was thrilling. The first day in Macapá for boot camp. Gunny Ellison slapping Shepard in the head for "goldbricking" on Titan. Zero gravity training at Arcturus Station. The triumphant wave of a datapad telling Shepard he'd been admitted into N7. All of his brothers, sisters, promotions, victories and defeats at the hands of the Human Systems Alliance military.

The rough sprints, dizzying hits to kinetic barriers, coordinated strikes and soldier camaraderie peeled away at the boisterous youth from before. Malcolm's death was the first under Shepard's command but the pain was blunted by years of bodies piling up under his watch.

" _Stop, Shepard."_ Liara's command paused the carnage in its tracks. Ash sadly agreed. _"This is not how I want to remember you. Please. Can you show me something that made you happy? Truly happy?"_ While Ash desperately wanted to see this, her resentment for Liara being the recipient came flaring back. Shepard paused to think for a moment, then nodded back at Ash/Liara.

Strobe lights and thumping music filtered in through the black. A brunette bartender offered Shepard's open hand a full glass. The glass dipped in toast to Kaidan and Joker who laughed boisterously and told him to chug it. The scene briefly shook back and forth with Shepard's emphatic no.

Liara and Tali on Shepard's right were huddled closely together at the Flux bar, deep in discussion about… food? _"Tali mentioned liking some asari dishes made with dextro substitutes,"_ Liara remembered fondly in Ash's ear. _"I loved talking to Tali about food on the SR-1. Most Thessian or asari colony meals contain ingredients rich with eezo dust, which is poisonous to non-asari species. We often compared notes to see which of us could best adapt your human dishes to our species."_

_I never knew that._

There was a light, early evening crowd at Flux, mostly human. The krogan bouncer and Wrex were showing off their pistols and heatedly debating manufacturers. Wrex favored Kassa Fabrications for their breadth of guns and biotic amps while the bouncer claimed Elkoss Combine's Scimitar line was superior.

Shepard's drink bobbed into view as he downed it on his way over to the colorful dance floor. Asari gracefully spun between human men stepping in place and human women bouncing to a lively techno beat. Ashley Williams, in casual Alliance dress, was hopping and clapping cheerfully with Flux's volus owner, Doran. Even though the pudgy volus only came up to about Ash's waist, he still held up a stocky arm so she could twirl and spin around him.

" _Mind if I cut in?"_ Doran's glowing eyes blinked and he wheezed an affirmative, relinquishing control of Ashley to Shepard. It was strange for Ash to be looking at herself and not in a mirror or on a vid. This Ashley's eyes were glazed over from one too many drinks. Wisps of dark brown hair had escaped her proper military bun to frame her flushed face. Her dark lips parted in a lazy grin.

" _Think you can keep up, Commander?"_ There was no flirtatious _Skipper_ on her tongue at this point yet, for their relationship was still being cautiously explored. And as such, they weren't intimate enough to feel awkward about dancing together. Shepard's hand extended outward to Ashley in challenge. _"I think I can handle it, Chief."_

The point of view was dizzying. Ash was a decent dancer and alcohol had lowered her inhibitions, so she shook her hips and waved her arms with reckless abandon. Occasional glimpses of Shepard's arms and shoulders (and the amused glances of the other dancers) told him his dancing was awkward, but he didn't care. He was comforted by the rhythm and movement, the bob and sway and energy.

A few errant touches were overlooked but not unwelcome. The alcohol in his veins soon made the memory hazy, sweaty and difficult to see anything other than Ashley's dark eyes and the bright skin of her long, exposed neck. Her laugh was a low, throaty sound sometimes reaching a higher, giggly register. Her hands sometimes alighted on his shoulders, sending thrills of heat to his light head.

Seconds, minutes, hours passed for all they knew. They snarked and teased and competed. Sometimes other women or asari pressed their backs up against him, leering with lust, so Ash would possessively pull him away. Sometimes she tapped her way back to Doran and had to be kidnapped by Shepard.

Finally Ashley spun gracefully and fell backward into Shepard's waiting arms. He caught her and embraced her tightly, his breath pushing on her loose tendrils of hair and even her long eyelashes. Her eyes were shut, but opened warmly. _"Thanks for the save, Hero Man."_

" _Hero Man—?"_

" _Hero Man, **sir**."_

The perspective suddenly lurched to an almost split-screen. The air was suffocating and it switched chaotically between slow motion and comically sped up. In both instances, the background was different but the scene the same: most of Shepard's view not obscured by his helmet was focused on Ashley Williams' torso. On one, her armor was white and pink and the other it was updated with blue and black. Burnt orange and red Martian dust filled one background, cold metal of AA towers the other.

It was deafening, the sound. A million voices spoke at once, all of them Shepard's. There were prayers. Threats. Hopes. Fears. Impatience. Unnerving calm. One yelled at Ashley to hang on while another whispered to stay with me. The undercurrent was a steady rhythm of simply _"Please._ _ **Please**_ _."_ Each pulsing plea was met by a tightening in the chest.

But sometimes the view shifted. One moment the limp body in his hand was adorned in a white dress, laughing and happy. In another she wore black and felt cold. Shepard loved and hated all these possibilities and fought to push them all away, even the ones he desperately wanted. Suddenly the locker slammed shut in front of them, and Ash/Liara stood watching Shepard on a black canvas of thought.

The Commander sighed sadly. _"Sorry. It gets hard to turn off my head when it starts going like that._

"... _I wish I could show Ashley these things. I wish I'd had time to tell her… so many things. Two years lost, months wasted… There just never was enough time to say everything I wanted to say."_ Shepard frowned and rubbed his neck _. "She was better than me, in so many ways. She pushed me to keep up, to be better. To want to be better."_

" _Shepard, I…"_ Liara tried to conceal her thoughts, but Ash still heard the beginning of _"I wish I could…"_

Shepard was looking at the endless black floor and hadn't heard Liara. _"She told me once that I made her feel good enough. She made me feel like… like I was home. That I could go to the end of the galaxy and still be home. Even after everything, I can't let that feeling go. I won't."_

Ashley's bitterness at Liara and Shepard's intimate relationship abruptly switched to empathy and pity. How would she feel, in Liara's situation, if she could feel his deepest desires while knowing he wished she were another person? _"Please do not feel sorry for me, Ashley. I chose to be here with the knowledge that Shepard does not share my feelings for him. I am happy to know he is happy with you, and you him."_ Ash could tell the words weren't a lie, but they were laced with a sharp pain.

"Normandy SR-2 ground crew," Admiral Anderson's baritone paged in the distance and yet all around them. "Report to FOB command center in 5 minutes."

Shepard clutched Ash/Liara's hand and they stood together for a few moments, savoring the silence. "I'll be there in a minute," he said and thought simultaneously.

The entryway to the Captain's Cabin snapped back into view. The two women stared at each other a moment, unable to break the intimate tension they'd just explored. The rocking of the Normandy jarred them out of their stupor, as did Joker's voice over the comm inside the cabin demanding everyone "Brace for evasive maneuvers!"

A hint of a sad smile returned to Liara's lips as she stepped forward to call the elevator. Ashley touched the asari's forearm and could only choke out a whisper.

"Thank you, Liara. For everything."

* * *

… _Kalahira, whose waves wear down stone and sand…_

This time, the Commander awoke to an almost complete absence of sound and light. His ears popped with the change in air pressure and started to detect faint rustlings and scrapings. This time was even more difficult to open his eyes and push through the pain. His earpiece buzzed once more but Admiral Hackett's voice was lost to static.

Shepard's Omni-tool flared to life, bathing the cavernous hallway in an orange glow. A line of code appeared on the holo interface, indicating it was scanning for local comm channels. Upon finding one, the static in Shepard's ear changed to a familiar, rumbling voice.

"Shepard?" It repeated his name once more, this time in a more hushed whisper.

"Anderson?" Rolling over on the floor, the Admiral's name came out as more of a groan than a question on Shepard's lips. He pushed himself to his feet, the piercing pain in his stomach protesting every single movement. He learned Anderson had managed to follow him up the beam as well, but they were deposited at different places. _How far apart are we? How did we get here?_

"What's your surrounding look like? Are you okay?" Anderson growled and his breathing was labored. _He's hurt too_ , Shepard realized. _We're falling apart up here. We're too old for this shit._ He took a few stumbling steps, dangerously swaying the whole way, but managed to remain upright. _For now, at least_. He hissed as he pressed his fingers into his gunshot wound.

"I feel like death," Shepard exhaled. "But I'm moving." _Apply pressure before you bleed out, Shepard,_ his mind warned in a higher, familiar voice. _If you don't come back to me, you'll have worse things to worry about than a flesh wound. …Okay, Chief. Okay._

Shepard's Omni-tool illuminated rows of piled bodies and a floor slick with human blood. A pair of Keepers probed the chaos, oblivious to the slaughter as they methodically carried on their Citadel-managing function. _"I can't tell the aliens from the animals," she'd observed once here, in this place. Long ago, before she'd seen everything the galaxy had to offer. …Now, I can't tell the humans from the butchered cattle._

But otherwise, the place resembled the Collector Base. Anderson and Shepard quietly speculated about the Reapers' intentions while picking their way slowly down their separate hallways. Thoughts of the humanesque proto-Reaper in the Collector Base pushed Shepard forward. _They won't turn us into them. I won't let them._

A pair of double doors swished open to a surprisingly clean, empty corridor. To the left and right, a wide chasm stretched in a circle around a central chamber ahead. Panels shifted and aligned down the chasm as kinetic lightning danced between the slots, reminding Shepard of the Shadow Broker ship over Hagalaz. _What are the Reapers doing to this place? …it is theirs, after all. They just let us borrow it for a few thousand years. Is it their factory for producing new Reapers? Did we just willingly walk into their meat grinder? Is this how the Protheans and all the cycles before us met their end?_

The corridor began to slope upward to the central chamber, revealing a hint of a room with a high ribbed ceiling. The gentle incline was excruciating for Shepard's shuffling feet.

"I see something. A control panel, maybe. I'm just gonna go have a loo—" Anderson's comm suddenly cut out. The Admiral's last transmission indicated he was about thirty seconds ahead of Shepard, but the Commander didn't have the strength to break into a run to close the gap. He had to hunch over slightly to stay balanced, which put aching pressure on his abdomen. Every other footstep made a sick wet sound as his blood trickled through his fingers and ran down his leg.

The seconds ticked by until Shepard finally reached the open door. It was an incredible sight. The closed ward arms made a constellation of lights and lines that enveloped their location at the Citadel Tower.

_I've seen this before_ , Shepard remembered. _Two years ago. After we jumped the Conduit on Ilos to the Presidium… Ilos…_ Just thinking the name reminded him of Ash. _Duty calls. I'm with you every step of the way, Skipper. I always was. Keep going. It's almost over._

Anderson's back stood rigid a few feet away, seemingly focused on a control panel reminiscent of The Illusive Man's lair on Cronos Station. Shepard called the Admiral's name, but something was wrong. He turned around in a spastic, jerking way, like a puppet whose strings were tangled.

"Shepard… I… can't move…" Anderson growled out, his eyes wide and panicked as he lumbered forward. Shepard heard footsteps behind him, but too late. _Too slow_. A dark cloud pushed over his vision and froze him into place. A different, but still familiar, voice gloated behind him.

"I underestimated you, Shepard."


	13. Pray: Confirm

… _Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses…  
_

Liara was the one to break the awkward elevator silence. "Are you sure you're all right, Ashley?"

Truthfully, Ash felt like she could sleep for a thousand ( _fifty thousand?_ ) years. She kept having to check the time on the elevator wall to be sure it was accurate. _Was it really only five minutes? It took longer to leave the medbay than it did for Liara to jump into my head._ "A little tired, T'Soni, but nothing a stim won't cure."

The asari's Doctor voice radiated concern, "Even a shallow melding can be exhausting for the inexperienced mind. I recommend you not exert yourself on the bridge and sit down immediately if you feel light-headed. Some side effects include after-images of memories returning to the surface. Do not fight them or they may be painful. Just let it flow and breathe deeply."

"'Let the buyer beware?' Shouldn't this have been in the manual upfront before you went poking around?" Ash kept most of the acid out of her tongue, but she was still a little annoyed. _…Williams, would that have stopped you? Wasn't it worth it? …and then some, Brain. And then some._

"I am more experienced with your species since I joined the SR-1," Liara reminded Ash. _In more ways than one._ "But human minds are still very different from asari and interpret information differently. You are strong-willed and determined, like Shepard, so any adverse reactions should be minimal."

Liara's eyes closed sleepily and she had to steady herself against the elevator wall with a hand. "I, however, am exhausted. If it is all right with you, Lieutenant Commander, I will be returning to the medbay to rest. I suggest you do the same as soon as you are able. Or willing, rather." Ashley gripped the asari's forearm reassuringly and nodded.

Ash was on her Omni-tool even before the elevator door opened. "Situation report, Joker," she demanded into her comm despite only a two room distance. The corner of her eye caught Liara handing a datapad to another comms specialist, shooting Ashley a significant look, then returning to the elevator.

Exasperated, Joker struggled to control his temper. "We're getting pummeled out here, LC. If it weren't for the Destiny Ascension diverting a good chunk of Reaper fire, most of the fleet would be wiped out by now."

In the middle of the CIC, the map of Earth that had replaced the normally omnipresent galaxy map backed up Joker's claims. A white holo schematic of the Citadel was surrounded by the swirling red dots of Reaper forces, overwhelming the blue Alliance fleets at every turn. Zooming out, the bulbous form of the Crucible crept ever closer to Earth, closer to exposure to the Reapers, closer to ending the war.

"And… you're gonna wanna hear this, Ashley." Joker's tone was unreadable. The green line of the comm channel on her orange interface switched to Admiral Hackett's general broadcast feed. "—oly shit. He did it. We're getting reports someone made it to the Citadel."

 _I knew it. …Shepard_.

Ashley's heart was having trouble deciding if it wanted to stop beating, flip over, or pound its way out of her chest. She stopped her deliberate path to the cockpit and instead made a beeline over to Specialist Samantha Traynor at the CIC bridge. Samantha's screen (or rather, screens) were filled with data feeds, algorithms, and encryption programs to update the battle map in real time.

"Talk to me, Traynor." The short-haired woman looked up from her hands flying over control keys to make brief eye contact with Ashley. Though her dark face was focused, Samantha's dark eyes briefly lit with understanding and sympathy.

"I wish I had good news, Lieutenant Commander," Samantha said softly, before switching to a more professional tone. "I'm extrapolating every comm channel I can find, both shortwave and long range. The signal is too weak to confirm who made it on the Citadel. I'm trying to boost the signal from Hammer on the ground, but all comm towers that were in range of the beam were either destroyed or abandoned. And EDI is too far away to try and hack in remotely."

EDI's voice chimed in over the intercom on Ashley's Omni-tool. "I have engaged my cyberwarfare suite in an aggressive probe of all open and available broadcast comms near the Citadel and in London to try and intercept data. I am effectively converting all open galactic fleet vessels engaged with Reaper forces into comm buoys in order to detect who has made it to the Citadel."

This discussion had been an effective tool to harden Ashley from the whirlwind of thoughts still begging to be let back into her head. Shepard's voice from Liara's memories still had the nasty habit of touching inside her nerves, making her fists clench. _Tough it out, marine. You've got a ship to run_ , she reminded herself for the third time in as many minutes.

 _Don't beat around the bush._ "Is it **Shepard** , EDI?"

"I have a 64.8% certainty that one of the voice signatures detected on the Citadel matches that of Admiral David Anderson." Ashley was suddenly very aware that she was holding her breath, but her body didn't seem to care at the moment. _Thank God Anderson is alive. But… this isn't how it's supposed to be. Shepard… Where the hell is Shepard?_

She cleared her throat though still refused to inhale. "Coordinate with Hackett's Shield force around the Citadel. Maintain stealth systems but don't be a hero, Joker. We're the Alliance's command center first, a dreadnought second. Are we clear?"

Joker wasn't interested in the severe tone of Ashley's voice, but he did concede. "Fine, fine. My finger might slip to the Fire All Weapons button every now and then if I see an opening, but just for you, LC, I'll continue doing laps around the Citadel." EDI mentioned that she was getting dizzy from all the laps and might pop the airlock to clear her head, before neutrally following with "...That was a joke."

Ashley turned to the side door leading to the comm room, tossing an order at Samantha behind her, "Get me Hackett." For once, no security curtain or Alliance officers stood at the ready. The two Privates, Westmoreland and Campbell, had volunteered to remain on Earth during the Reaper battle. Ash prayed their names would not be added to the memorial wall. _We've lost enough already. …And we might lose even more? …Shut it, Brain._

The war room was bustling with nearly the same level of activity as the CIC. Specialists were coordinating with the protective detail around the Crucible, citing where defenses could be improved or questioning any performance issues popping up on the massive white schematic holo. Garrus and Tali sat in tall chairs around the perimeter of the room, three-fingered hands flying over their collection of orange screens.

For a moment, Ashley felt despondently out of place. Garrus served the turian hierarchy, coordinating with the Primarch on Earth with the rest of his people's fleets. The geth and quarian admirals all looked to Tali to interpret ship logistics for the armada. And Ashley? She was a soldier, a fighter, just another officer on a ship.

 _"I'm infantry. My rifle might as well shoot spitballs. I won't have a place in this war,"_ Ash had said of herself once years ago when she assumed she would die a grunt on the frontlines. And now?

 _I have a place in this war: to find Shepard and bring him home. Where's home?_ A stupid voice asked. _With me. I will bring him home. I just need to find him. …please God, just let me find him._

Traynor's voice chimed over the intercom just as Ash stepped into the comm room at the back of the ship, "Hackett on vidcom for you, Lieutenant Commander." An older man with a deep scar across his face shimmered into view, his face lined and pensive.

"Report, Lieutenant Commander Williams." Straight to the point. Ashley's posture straightened and her hands clasped behind her back. "We are currently engaged in the Reaper fleet surrounding the Citadel, stealth systems engaged. Every available specialist and ensign aboard is working on expanding communications between the alien fleets. SSV Normandy SR-2 stands ready to assist, Admiral sir."

"Acknowledged, Lieutenant Commander. Maintain your current position. We have confirmation that the ward arms are opening, and are commencing with docking the Crucible. But that leaves us exposed to the Reapers." Hackett's form wavered in agitation as he rubbed at his temple. Ash inwardly sighed with relief. _We're almost there. With the Crucible, we can win this._

"Sir, any news about who made it to the Citadel?" _Have you heard from Shepard?_

"We made brief contact with Admiral Anderson through the interference of the beam, but otherwise we're flying blind. We're running out of time, Williams." A desperate gleam in Hackett's eyes betrayed his impassive face.

"We still have Shepard, Admiral. We'll make it. He'll make it." _You keep saying that. If you say it enough, will that make it true? He would have tried to contact you—the fleet… by now. Maybe you should start to face the reality that Shepard is—SHUT. UP. Shepard never leaves anything unfinished. He's still got a job to do. And he'll do it._

"I hope you're right. Keep scanning emergency channels. Hackett out." The Admiral's blue form disappeared before he could return Ashley's salute. She relayed the message to Traynor, who promised to keep up her search. "If the Commander is out there, Ashley, I will find him. And you'll be the first to know."

"Copy that, Traynor."

Stiffness started to settle into Ashley's joints as she returned to the war room. Her injuries, kept at bay with painkillers, were starting to stack up against stress, the meld with Liara, and lack of sleep. _Maybe you should have spent more time sleeping and less time—It was worth it. Every hour. Every minute. Every second._

A nearby specialist offered Ash his freshly poured cup of coffee, which she gladly accepted and downed. The burn in her throat was a pleasant distraction compared to the pulsing heat in her abdomen and thigh. And the doubt in her head.

_You need to go back to the medbay. You're tired. Weak._

_No. I'll sleep when I'm dead._

_Will you sleep when he's dead?_

_Stop._

"Lieutenant Commander!" Traynor's normally airy voice was low and commanding through the intercom. Every specialist in the war room took notice of it as well and paused in their work. "I think—I think I've found it."

"It?"

"Him. Commander Shepard. I found Shepard. It's a weak signal, but it's definitely—"

Ashley's heart was again having trouble deciding if it wanted to stop beating, flip over, or pound its way out of her chest. She didn't so much walk as run out of the war room. Her abdomen shrieked at the pain while her thigh muscles were determined to seize up and slow her down. Ash skidded to a halt at Traynor's station, where two screens greeted the women.

One held Admiral Hackett's face as he requested over and over again for Shepard to respond. The other showed a very weak green comm signal captured at the coordinates of the Citadel Tower. It was several long seconds before the plateauing line bobbed up in down as it connected.

To Commander Shepard.

"I—I'm here. What do you need me to do?" _I need you to come back to me._

* * *

… _Kalahira, wash the sins from this one, and set him on the distant shore of the infinite spirit…_

Anderson collapsed a short distance from where The Illusive Man's lifeless body lay. Shepard desperately wanted to pause, to check on his friend, to ask forgiveness for his unwilling role in harming the Admiral. But outside the locked-down prison of the Citadel arms sat the waiting Crucible, his duty pushing him past his friend. _The war could be over. If I can just… make it… a little further…_

It was fifteen footsteps to the control panel, and Shepard felt every last one reverberate through his aching limbs. His sole focus was a glowing panel beckoning him to open the Citadel. The Commander leaned heavily on the control pedestal to steady himself long enough to tap the necessary few keys.

Brilliant white light stabbed his eyes as the giant ward arms slid outward and apart, revealing the waiting sun starting to peek over Earth's horizon. It was briefly dizzying for he was upside-down in relation to Earth, staring at the brilliant white, blue and green of the southern hemisphere. The pristine view was then marred by black debris and bright orange explosions sprinkled throughout the atmosphere as Reapers decimated the Alliance fleet.

Hackett's voice suddenly chimed into Shepard's earpiece, the result of his Omni-tool reconnecting to the galactic fleet free of The Illusive Man's interference. A shadow crossed over the Citadel Tower as the giant Crucible glided into a docking position above, Hackett narrating its progress the entire way.

Shepard turned his head at labored breathing behind him. Anderson had crawled into a sitting position on the floor two meters behind him, and Shepard fell into place beside the Admiral. They both sat in silence for a few long moments, alternating between deep sighs and long, tired blinks.

"Commander." Anderson's acknowledgement didn't show anger or betrayal or even sadness. That Shepard had been forced to shoot the Admiral wasn't even worthy of discussion or apology in Anderson's eyes.

Shepard was almost incredulous. "We did it." _I knew you would, Skipper._

"Yes. We did." Anderson's eyes skimmed the carnage, saw past it. To what was and what could be. "It's …quite a view." His chest rose and fell heavily, practically rocking back and forth with the exertion of breathing.

Blood bubbled up in Shepard's throat, making his dry laugh rueful. "Best seats in the house." His mind started to push thoughts on him, thoughts of the end. The Commander tried to fend them off by focusing on how beautiful Earth looked, how beautiful it had been, how beautiful it would be again.

"God. It feels like years since I just …sat down." The Admiral's chin had steadily lowered until it was resting on his collarbone. He sounded relieved. At peace. "I think you've earned a rest," Shepard agreed with a pained smile. His eyelids were getting heavy. _I could use a rest too. No more nightmares._

"Anderson?" Shepard asked, relieved when the Admiral grunted sleepily but alarmed when he saw Anderson's eyes start to roll back in his head. "Stay with me. We're almost through this."

"You did good, son." Anderson's tone had softened to a hush. "I'm …proud of you," he whispered as leaned towards the Commander. His head drooped as though deep in thought. Shepard nodded gratefully, "Thank you, sir."

Anderson hissed lightly in an exhale, but did not breathe back in. Shepard turned, alarmed. "…Anderson?" He nudged Anderson with a shoulder, but the man did not move. Shepard blearily looked around. There was no one to call for help. No medic. No evac. No Normandy to swoop in and steal away the people he loved to safety.

Shepard's head dropped in despair. He wiped at a pair of hot tears that seared his eyes, but only managed to smear blood into them. He traced a fingertip over the pain on his face, noting each tender spot in turn. Broken nose. Bruised cheekbones. Cuts, so many cuts. The skin along his jaw and cheeks felt loose, and a light sweep touched exposed cybernetics with a tremor of pain.

He studied the hand pressed to his stomach. With his charred N7 armor, he could no longer tell what was dirt and what was blood. _I'm sorry, Ash. We got it done, but I don't think I get to go home. …Ash. I want more time. I want…_

"Shepard?" Admiral Hackett interrupted the darkness that had started to press in on the Commander. "Commander!" The voice asked again, more forceful this time. Shepard suspected he'd blacked out for a few seconds, for this didn't sound like the first time Hackett had tried to hail him.

 _We haven't won yet, soldier._ Shepard's body protested the movement, but the sharp pain triggered enough brain cells to remind him that the Crucible wasn't activated yet. He tried to stand but pitched forward heavily onto his wrists, leaving a bloody trail in his wake.

 _The Reapers are still out there, and you're down here ready to quit already, Shepard. This isn't you, Hero Man._ The self baiting worked, for Shepard rolled over and crawled back to the console. "I—I'm here. What do you need me to do?"

"Nothing's happening. The Crucible's not firing." Shepard's stumbling momentum sent him sprawling face-first, but he pressed onward. _How did I get here? …C'mon, Shepard. Just a little longer. Hold on. I'm holding on and never letting go, and you sure as hell aren't letting go either._

"It's gotta be something on your end." Shepard could detect understandable hysteria in Hackett's voice, but the blood was rushing to his head and screaming at his attempts at movement. _Don't listen to that, listen to me. A Williams has to be better than the best, and I expect nothing less from a Shepard._

"Commander Shepard!" Hackett's tone, seemingly desperate to compensate for wavering, switched to exasperation.

Shepard simply didn't have the energy to stand. He stretched up from his crawl, hoping to see some sort of obvious button within easy reach, but in his weakened state the control panel had been reduced to a jumble of glowing nonsensical shapes.

"I don't see—I'm not sure how to—" Shepard collapsed in defeat. _I'm sorry_ , his mind told no one and everyone before surrendering to the darkness for a third time. His body was distantly aware that it was being propelled upward, towards a light.

But the darkness just didn't care right now. Shepard didn't either.


	14. Pray: Deny

… _Kalahira, this one's heart is pure, but beset by wickedness and contention…_

Commander Shepard was at an impasse, trapped between the power of the Crucible and the swirling war going on outside the Citadel. Earth filled his vision, a beautiful backdrop to endless destruction.

 _Many decisions lie ahead. None of them easy..._ He had thought that to himself once, back on the Normandy SR-1, before he knew what Saren or Collectors or Reapers were. And now?

A gleaming white road ahead branched off into three distinct paths.

To Shepard's left, two simple handles beckoned with blue sparks igniting along their base. Pure power. In front, a two hundred meter drop where there would be no return. White light flowed directly from the core of the Crucible into the Citadel, a direct interface. On the right, fragile glass tubing housed a pulsing red light. It was a heatsink of sorts, waiting to be expelled and release the destructive energy within.

They had different goals, different ends, different voices that both called and repulsed Shepard. His pistol had found its way back into his hand, though he hadn't quite decided how to use it yet. This was something he couldn't yell or shoot his way past. It demanded Shepard's life in exchange for everyone else's, with the cold comfort that he got to pick his most suitable end.

A fleeting kick of adrenaline pushed the Commander's feet slowly forward and began a roundtable discussion in his mind. His enemies and allies all rallied to their causes, aware only a limited amount of time remained before Shepard's fragile body gave out and they all failed anyway.

_So. Who wants to go first?_

**Control.** _Who understands the push and pull of control?_

Thane Krios had given his life because The Illusive Man wanted to bend the Reapers to his will. But… to turn your enemy into your ally was the ultimate victory. The Reapers could become guides, servants, protectors of the galaxy.

" _But for how long_ ," Thane pushed back. " _Technology cannot cure greed or wickedness."_ The Illusive Man countered that power could uplift Shepard and humanity and do the greatest amount of good possible with the mightiest fleet imaginable at his fingertips.

" _You are uncorrupted, Shepard."_ The Illusive Man pleaded, despite the fact he had eventually succumbed to his own doubt with a bullet to the temple. " _You could do what I failed to do. Save humanity, uplift us, become our immortal vanguard. I would have given my life to a cause and you've always been an idealist. What is more ideal than becoming a god and shaping the galaxy to your wisdom? You will be the instrument of peace and have the power to ensure it is enforced."_

" _Do not become what you hate."_ Thane's voice was cool but severe. " _For two years, you saw what Reaper technology has done to the galaxy. Turning the dead into husks defiled people's memories of their loved ones. How great would the temptation be to override with indoctrination those who disagree? And where would it end? Do you_ _ **have**_ _the wisdom to control, or just_ _ **believe**_ _you have the wisdom?"_

The Illusive Man lurched greedily forward in his mind, eager to reach those controls. Shepard stumbled slightly. His breathing deepened to a wheeze. He glanced to the left path, noting the light incline.

_I cannot guarantee I could maintain control of the Reapers indefinitely, that I would not in turn be indoctrinated and need to be destroyed one day. But I could also become an immortal sentinel, to rebuild and shape the galaxy to my choosing. It is the potential to do the greatest possible good at the greatest possible risk._

He looked to the right where another path inclined slightly to a collection of tubes and cables. The blisters on his palms made the pistol difficult to grip. For a second, Shepard thought he saw the ghost of Anderson charging forward, guns blazing, determined to see the Reapers destroyed.

 **Destruction.** _How do I confirm or deny someone's right to exist?_

" _Shepard. They will never stop until they wipe us all out. We have to break the cycle."_ David Anderson's voice echoed sadly in Shepard's mind. " _We're soldiers. We would lay down our lives to protect our people. You can't trust the Reapers."_

" _Hard to see big picture behind pile of corpses_ ," Mordin Solus warned. Condemning the geth and even EDI for what they may or may not do? They have demonstrated that synthetics deserve the chance to find their future on their own terms. " _Acting in defense of greater good? Trample minority._ _Stupid, stupid waste of life. Avoidable."_

Anderson argued that the Reapers could never be trusted or controlled. " _Anything less than destruction steals our future from us, our ability to shape and discover and learn and make mistakes to better ourselves. Synthetics can be rebuilt, Shepard. ….We can't. We've earned the right to choose for ourselves."_

" _Not like giving nuclear weapons to cavemen, like salarians did with krogran._ _Synthetics like us. Create conscious thought only to be disposed when inconvenient? Who is greater monster?"_ Mordin's empathy stabbed at Shepard, for if the ice-cold STG operative could rediscover his conscience, how could Shepard live with his?

_Do I punish the geth… even EDI… for wanting to be like us? Is it worth extinction of the few so that the many are forever free? To risk that we might all destroy ourselves anyway in the distant future because we forgot that lesson?_

The long path directly in front rippled with the energy of the beam. It was eerily beautiful, and the crackle of power set Shepard's teeth on edge. It tugged and pulled at the cybernetics along his exposed jaw, with a faint hum of energy.

**Synthesis.** _Is this the beginning or the end of evolution?_

With one leap, Shepard could usher in a utopia for the entire galaxy. All the tech responsible for returning life to his body could transform every organism into a perfect hybrid and give every synthetic the awakening they desired from their creators.

EDI's voice purred at the opportunity to become organic. _"To evolve and unite was the ultimate goal of any species, and we would all be one with no one superior or inferior to another. I truly felt alive in your presence, Shepard. Now it could be so, for all synthetics and organics."_

" _Shepard-Commander_ ," Legion contested. " _Evolution is not a straight line. We must build our own future, along our own path. To be given our future is to make us slaves, to be blinded rather than illuminated."_ Geth considered members of their own race heretics for submitting to Sovereign for transcendence. It is the same for organics who accept rather than discover for themselves.

But the geth were once condemned just for wondering if they had a soul. EDI offered that their souls could be equal to organics. _"With the Reapers as allies, we would have the collective knowledge of all cultures that came before. Unlimited access to each other, symbiosis… we can reclaim our place in the galaxy, together, coexisting. Is that not worth fighting for? Dying for?"_

" _That knowledge was not earned. It is imposed. Forced."_ Legion was saddened. _"To be fully aware is to have the luxury of mistake. To learn. To improve. To disagree. To …build consensus. By removing those steps necessary to achieve awareness, it reduces the ability to see new paths otherwise bypassed."_

Shepard sighed. His vision was getting hazy and things had not gotten any clearer in his mind. A few times during his meandering jog, Shepard's head had dropped to his collarbone and his back groaned at the effort.

_I could make everyone equal in an instant at, again, the price of freedom for everyone to choose for themselves. Would other species suffer the fate of the krogan, prematurely uplifted only to rebel against their champions? Would other species be able to evolve, discover technology, leave their home worlds, create their own future?_

Shepard paused, arriving at the junction where the main path split. The council in his mind convened, leaving him with a simple task: " _How do you want to die, Shepard? To protect, to uplift or to let the many decide for themselves without you?"_

… _What do you think, Ash?_ Shepard shifted the weight of the pistol in his hands and regarded the three possibilities one last time, pushing back every voice except the one that really mattered.

 _"With all due respect,_ _I think it's all bullshit, Commander."_

_What makes you say that, Chief?_

_"The Reaper construct… AI… VI… hivemind… **whatever…** is overjoyed to finally find a worthy organic, and its reward is to kill the man responsible for breaking the cycle? It isn't fair. You deserve better."_

_I did get better, Ash. I had you._

_"God, that's terrible. Even at the end, you still have the poetic style of a greeting card."_

_I try, Chief._ Shepard grimaced and coughed deeply, tasting blood on his teeth. _Time to go. Tell me what you think I should do, Ash, and I'll do it._

 _"You always do the right thing."_ The last time she said that, so many months ago after punching out James Vega in the Cargo Hold, it had been laced with accusation. Now, Shepard heard it with respect.

Even if it was all in his head. It's all he has left, after all.

_"I trust you, Shepard. Whatever you decide, I'll back you up. Choose wisely."_

* * *

… _As we forgive those that trespass against us…_

"Arms are opened, Crucible docked. All fleets, report in." Hackett's voice chimed in over the Normandy comm, to the affirmative of the active Alliance, turian, asari, geth and quarian fleets. Even the few remaining salarian, elcor, volus and batarian fleets acknowledged the Admiral's hail.

The losses were severe. The Destiny Ascension, once the pride of the asari fleet, smoldered after being cut in half and required mass evacuation. Less than half the Sword and Shield fleets remained in action, the rest were either destroyed or at the mercy of the Reapers on Earth. Harbinger's return to the Reaper forces above Earth was turning the tide of the battle back in favor of the invaders. Time was running out.

The activity on the Citadel had Ashley ready to jump out of her skin. She replayed Shepard's few exchanges with Hackett over and over in her earpiece, desperate to pick out every nuance of his words. _That stutter. Shepard never stutters. He must be injured. How bad? They said Harbinger wiped out the ground force. He could be badly burned or gotten shot or his legs might—are you trying to give me a panic attack, Brain? Shepard is alive, like I knew he was._

_And I will get him home._

_First thing's first. Check in. Assess. Decide. Act. There's no retreat and no surrender here, Williams. Better than the best, remember?_

The Crucible docking had ignited a second wind with the Alliance forces at least. Everyone was now clinging to the desperate hope that a push of a button would end the war, so they rallied under a "nothing left to lose" banner. Not sustainable in the long term, but enough.

_It has to be enough._

Ashley ordered the Normandy to continue circling the Citadel, though she was eager to receive permission for a search and rescue. She relayed the demand constantly to Admiral Hackett who patiently overruled her, citing the need for support.

Frustrated by the brass stonewall as well as the growing headache that pressed at her temples, Ash turned away from the comm room to return to the CIC once more. _But I'll be back every half hour if I have to, Admiral._ She could almost see her bootprints wearing into the metal floor, though it probably wouldn't come close to the path Shepard had traced over the last few months. The door whooshed open once more to reveal the busy war room.

Tali and Garrus acknowledged her presence this time, cautiously optimistic after hearing Shepard made it to the beam. Their enthusiasm did much to lighten Ash's mood, though the headache had escalated to a dull pounding. And were those whispers? In her head? She tried to clear her head with a quick shake. Nothing.

The turian's mandibles flexed in a wide grin. "Guess I won't be seeing Shepard at the bar after all," Garrus mused, to Ashley's confusion. _What the hell is he talking about? …probably just some bro-date in-joke. If only you didn't have such competition for Shepard's affection._ "Now I need to find someone else to buy me brandy. Hey Tali, what's the fleet's policy on homebrewing? Those liveships look like they'd have fine dextro distilleries."

Even through a frosted mask, the quarian managed to convey a haughty smirk with just a head tilt and squinted eyes. "A fling in the battery is not an open invitation to the fleet, Vakarian." _A fling? Tali and Garrus? Damn. I guess everyone is hooking up at the end of the world—stop right there._ "…and, just so you know, quarians make better alcohol than turians. I was just being polite before."

"Yea, so polite you drank my entire stash through a straw. You talk big, Vas Normandy, but you're a lightweight. Stick with me and I might even sneak you the good stuff every once in awhile. If you're good, that is." Garrus chuckled but his voice purred through the sarcasm. Tali's eyes glowed in amusement, but a message from Admiral Daro'Xen drew her attention away from flirting.

"Lieutenant Commander Williams, I have Lieutenant James Vega for you on comm," EDI chimed above. Ash flicked a finger over her Omni-tool, which glowed to life with a small orange screen. Rather than turning around, she continued ahead to the always empty conference room outside.

"Lolita! How are things in the black? I hope you're having better luck than we are downstairs."

 _Informal as ever_ , Ash sighed. She peered at the glitchy holo, trying to figure out Vega's condition. Leading a small contingent of marines, James was hunkered down in a building on the south side of London after the forced retreat.

"We're holding our own, Vega. Shepard and Anderson made it to the beam and the Crucible is docked."

"Hell yea! I knew the Commander had _cajones_. I bet that ride to the sky was insane," James's scarred face grinned back at Ash, but there was a fleeting glimpse of stress in his eyes. And was his jaw set a little tensely?

"What's the status of the FOB, Lieutenant?" _Time to pull rank and see what's up._ She drew a hand to her forehead, desperate to hold in the pain that was becoming unbearable.

James looked away in shame, his brow creasing. "…we were overrun, LC. Hammer held out as long as it could, but the Reapers sent in a goddamn expeditionary force over the walls. Major Coats ordered we fall back and split up."

 _No second chances_ , Ash thought grimly. _If Shepard had escaped to the Normandy with you, the Citadel would be locked up tight and the Crucible would be floating out there with its ass hanging out. …I get it, Brain._ "…I'm sorry, James. How are you holding up?"

Vega shifted to a wide grin and patted his shotgun. "Oh, me and Franchesca are kickin' ass. And we ran into this _loquita_ running biotic barriers with a couple Grissom kids. Saved my ass more than once."

"Hey dumbass! You through callin' the sex hotline? Worry about your pecker later, we've got Reapers inbound. And I'm warnin' you right now: I'm the jealous type." A voice shouted off camera, throaty and raspy but familiar to Ash. _Is that …Jack?_

"You know you're the only girl for me, _mi querida_. Well, you and Franchesca. I think I actually found someone crazier than the Commander," James laughed before turning back to Ash. "Speaking of which. What time is he lighting up the Reapers and ending this thing?"

Ashley swallowed deeply, pushing through a fresh wave of pain. Her grin probably was more of a grimace, but Vega didn't seem to notice. "Any minute now, I'm sure of it. You know Shepard, he's just dotting his i's and crossing his t's."

"Hallelujah, LC. We'll have a beer waiting for you. Or a fresh bottle of tequila." James's eyes twinkled mischievously before he gave a terse salute. "See you on the ground, Williams. Vega out."

Thankfully, James didn't wait for a return salute before logging out of the comm, for Ashley had slumped forward over the conference table. Her skull had jumped from manageable to splitting within seconds. Whispers and voices rang in her ears, fiercely competing with the black that swept over her eyes.

A hospital ceiling fixture flickered into view. The landscape was ringed with red, the after-image of intense pain. The perspective dropped to the window, where the remains of Sovereign jutted out from the distant Citadel tower. A sigh, then the scene dipped even lower to the hospital sheets. A (man's?) muscular torso was wrapped in white gauze with splotchy blood around the ribs. The right leg lay under a low machine that was repairing tears in fibrous tissue while the left arm hung limply in a sling. The scene faded to black.

 _That's it?_ Ash wondered.

She suddenly heard her own voice a few feet away. _"—on't give a damn about your 'normal visitation hours.' I need to see him."_ A low male voice responded, but Ash interrupted him. _"Take it up with Councilor Anderson. Did you hear? There's a human on the Council. Because of Commander Shepard. Yea, him. The first human Spectre. They kinda like to know how their Spectres are doing, and I drew the short straw to write the report. 2 minutes, doc. Just to put my superiors at ease."_

 _Did I just pull_ _ **his**_ _rank on someone?_ Ash laughed at herself. She didn't really remember this conversation, only some of the highlights. She was curious to see what Shepard remembered about this, if it matched her own recollection.

Because that's what it was: a memory.

Just not her own.

Light briefly filtered in to show Ashley's blurred shape enter the room and come up alongside the bed but Ash/Shepard's eyes snapped shut, obscuring the view.

" _They've got you locked down tighter than a quarian clean room, Shepard."_ There was a light laugh, followed by, _"Sorry. I'll be serious. You're a hard man to find after you save the galaxy from rogue Spectres."_

There was a soft rustle of cloth, and a warmth clasped around the limp left hand.

" _The rest of the crew is doing okay. We're a hardy bunch, Commander._

" _Garrus and Tali are swapping kill counts in the waiting room, though my gut tells me Tali cleaned house. I can't tell who the turian is chatting up more, Dr. Michel or Tali. Well, the end of all things certainly does wonders for your libido."_ A nervous cough, followed by an inflection only described as amused pleasure. _"You know. So I've heard."_

" _Wrex has been keeping a close eye on T'Soni. Dunno if I'd want that giant humpback hovering over me to kiss my owwies, but he claims he needs to have someone to talk to in a couple hundred years when the rest of us are dead. It's so sweet I could cry."_ She did not sound like she was about to cry. Not even a little.

" _Shepard?"_ Well, maybe a little **now**.

Ash/Shepard felt a tightening in the throat. Ash/Shepard's lips were cracked and dry and unable to moisten enough to speak. It wasn't that he didn't want to reply, he literally couldn't. He also didn't want to wreck the moment by saying something stupid.

" _Can you even hear me?"_ A long silence punctuated by some thoughtful inhales. " _With all due respect,_ _I think this is bullshit, Commander. You've done more for the Council than anyone, and I've already heard them trying to sweep this under the rug."_ An angry whistling through teeth.

" _Geth, Shepard! They're saying geth did this! I've asked four different Alliance officers what's going to be done about the Reapers, and they just spew a company line about geth."_

An anxious pause.

" _I was so afraid, Shepard. When we couldn't find you in all that wreckage. I—I thought you'd been crushed. I was afraid you were dead. And I just... I wanted you to…"_

The voice trailed off. There was a brief pang of longing, eager for the voice to continue. But Ashley knew that she didn't continue. She had wanted to tell him then that she would follow him into Hell. That their night together had meant a lot... Everything, even. That she was in love with him.

She didn't say it. He didn't know.

" _They tried to make me leave, Commander. But I wouldn't. Not until I knew where you were. Because I'll always have your back."_

The warmth on the wrist stirred, and Ash/Shepard felt a tickle across the forearm. It took a second to realize the tickle was a delicate, reassuring stroke. The warmth on the outside translated to a pleased glow on the inside. A light whisper touched Ashley's mind in Shepard's voice, _She_ _ **does**_ _care._

… _No shit, I care, Shepard. Did he doubt that I cared?_ Ash was trying to figure out how to make him understand, before sighing in defeat. This wasn't some telepathic link to Shepard's mind. It was just a residual memory, like Liara said would happen.

_Why this? Why now? What does it mean?_

_Maybe he did know._ Her mind held that thought before she blinked back awake, clearing the black haze.

And then, over the intercom, was the best news in the galaxy.

But the worst news in the galaxy for an Ashley Williams.

"All fleets: the Crucible is armed. Disengage and head for the rendezvous point."

_I'm not ready._


	15. Pray: Beginning

… _Guide this one to where the traveler never tires, the lover never leaves, the hungry never starve…_

A tiny snowflake traced the glass tubing, sending ripples and cracks. It was joined by two, three, a half dozen, now eight, now ten others. Shepard's hand, formerly pressed to the dizzying wound in his stomach, left his side to steady the Carnifex pistol as it sighted again and again.

Each shot had a name. A function. A purpose. Faces struck Shepard's mind like lightning with each recoil of the pistol, both pushing him away and pushing him onward. Voices, whispers, accompanied the crack of gunfire, both angry and comforting.

One. Ashley. " _A pessimist is what an optimist calls a realist_." A fleeting smile. A toss of hair.

Two. Kaidan. " _I think we're gonna need a bigger boot, Commander."_ Left behind.

Virmire seemed like an eternity ago. Shepard inhaled ragged breaths, determined to be steady and press on. He found himself wondering about Kaidan, condemned to die because Shepard couldn't, wouldn't, let Ash go. He wondered how much Kaidan saw, thought, remembered, regretted, accepted before a nuclear blast erased him from the universe. He wondered if he would be forgiven for what he was erasing from the universe.

" _Shepard. You know what dying is like, remember? It's no big thing. And Kaidan? He'd just want you to behave."_

Two more. Mordin and Thane. True martyrs who paid the ultimate price for what they believed. Shepard wanted to believe he was doing better for them. That they above all would understand what he was doing.

" _Death closes all._  
 _And something ere the end,_  
 _some work of noble note_  
 _may yet be done._  
 _Not unbecoming men_  
 _that strove with gods."_

The platform groaned slightly as the cracks deepened. The entire structure, so fragile yet so powerful, shifted as it started to weaken. But the tube remained solid and stoic against Shepard's gunfire.

Another. Garrus. " _Go out there and give them hell_." The best friend anyone could hope for.

And another. Anderson. " _I'm proud of you, son_." A deep crease. Always so serious.

He felt a ghost of pressure at his back, a comforting hand from Anderson. The Admiral had stood by the Commander through Spectres, Collectors and Reapers. He would understand, approve, follow. And Garrus had been with him through hell and back. _I'm sorry, old friends._

" _I cannot rest from travel._  
 _I will drink life to the lees._  
 _All times I have enjoyed greatly,_  
 _have suffered greatly,_  
 _both with those that loved me,_  
 _and alone…"_

Seven and eight. Joker and EDI.

… _I'm sorry, old friends. I wish… Well. I hope you can forgive me. I hope you can fix the damage I've done. I hope **you** can be fixed and find your way home. I never meant to help you find each other, then take it away. I never meant for any of this to happen._

Cables and metal sprang loose as the device began to collapse on itself. Shepard himself nearly collapsed. The blood loss was dizzying and he had to shake his head quickly and often to keep focus ahead. He hoped the Crucible would do whatever it needed to do quickly. It should be quick.

Nine. Legion. " _Shepard-Commander_." In the end, as human as the rest of us.

The geth. Two years ago, Shepard would have taken then apart piece by piece. Now? _I saved them. I saved them only to destroy them._

Shepard started to lose count and focus both. He was dimly aware he was still squeezing the trigger in controlled bursts. Always the soldier. Always doing what was necessary. Always making the hard decisions.

" _I have not winced nor cried aloud._  
 _Under the bludgeonings of chance_  
 _My head is bloody, but unbowed."_

Ten... _is it ten?_ _How did I get here?_ Ashley again. The beginning and end should start with her. He wished he could see the Presidium from here. He wanted to see that little café where they'd finally stopped playing and started living. He wanted to see Ashley waving at the ships going by so he could wave with her.

 _Choose wisely_ , he'd thought. Decided, really.

He chose Choice.

Shepard wanted a galaxy without Reapers in it. Even if it killed him. Even if it killed his friends, his allies, his heroes, himself. He wanted a lot of things. A family. A home. To live. He wanted those things for everyone else. Family. Home. Life.

" _For always roaming with a hungry heart_  
 _Much have I seen and known; cities of men_  
 _And manners, climates, councils, governments,_  
 _Myself not least, but honoured of them all;_  
 _And drunk delight of battle with my peers."_

He was sorry. For the things he was taking away. It was betrayal, plain and simple. Shepard hated himself that Choice wasn't clean or simple or dignified or... It wasn't fair. To the geth, EDI, all synthetics. It wasn't right. _EDI and Legion's only crimes were using Reaper upgrades to better themselves. ...me too, though I didn't ask for it. I guess it's a cold consolation that I'm sharing in their punishment. To be punished for being who you are. So that the many are free._

Red lightning lanced out from the structure, awakened by Shepard's assault. It receded into itself for a moment, then violently shoved outward. Heat washed over him, scalding his lungs and throwing him backwards. But it wasn't done yet. The lightning crackled and arced, drawn to the mass effect field of the Crucible. Seeking release.

There was another second of hesitation as the last of the energy retreated into the dome of the Crucible. But then a corona of light expanded outward, slowly at first, then it sprang to life.

Shepard only had a moment to pray. For victory. For the end to be swift. For Ashley.

" _You don't belong here, remember? It's time to go home, Skipper."_

… _but I have a home._

Then the red glow hit Shepard and he screamed in agony before being abruptly silenced.

* * *

… _And lead us not into temptation…_

"I repeat: Disengage and get the hell out of here!" _If the Admiral is swearing, it must be serious_ , Ashley thought. She returned Traynor's datapad and took two steps to touch Joker's shoulder. He glanced back at Ash, his eyes fiery with focus. It was a second before he recognized her and her expression of regret. Joker's head shook just once back and forth.

 _I know, Joker. I don't want to leave him either,_ Ashley blinked and nodded in understanding. It was one of those times where she thought, _What would Shepard do? He'd want to stay, of course._ But she had the crew to think about. Her desires and wishes were irrelevant. She was executive officer of the Normandy.

In that moment, there was nothing that Ashley Williams hated more than that she was executive officer of the Normandy.

"Joker. It's time to go." She couldn't stop husky anguish from creeping into her voice.

"Please, Ashley. I can't leave him behind. I can't do that again," Joker pleaded, for he was back on the SR-1 blaming himself for abandoning Shepard. _You didn't. I did. I left him when the Collectors hit. I left him on Earth. We were supposed to do this together._

To their right, EDI seconded Hackett's decision from the co-pilot chair. "I am detecting a massive dark energy build-up from the center of the Crucible. I cannot determine what the results will be, but I suggest we evacuate to a safe distance."

Joker's jaw clenched, causing a vein in his neck to bulge outward. He slumped, defeated. "…yea, okay."

Before Ash could contemplate overriding Hackett's orders, an orange glow washed over the cockpit. The view from the window displayed a rapidly expanding corona of energy bursting from the Citadel.

Ashley's gasping "Shepard!" was drowned out by Joker's growling "Damn it!" as the pilot flicked his wrist to engage a light speed jump. The Normandy lurched as it leapt to FTL, the red glow replaced by spinning black occasionally dotted with bright pins of light racing by.

_He did it. He really did it._

"ETA to rendezvous coordinates at current speed and trajectory: forty-six minutes," EDI reported over the intercom.

Ash waited for relief to sink in that they had escaped, that they were safe, that she had made the right decision to leave. But a sick feeling touched the Lieutenant Commander with nausea, on top of her already aching head which still refused to recover from the earlier meld. _Shepard… what happened to Shepard?_

She just had a bad feeling.

Specialists in the CIC started cheering, which turned Ashley's head. A few screens were tracking a growing blip of energy that was lancing outward from the Citadel and then jumping from relay to relay. Several sensors indicated a mysterious energy signature was in hot pursuit of the slightly bucking Normandy, though no emergency signals were going off. _Yet._

She took a few tentative steps out of the cockpit to ask the nearest crewmember. _What is going on?_

"He did it, Lieutenant Commander!"

"Are the Reapers—?"

"We're filtering unsubstantiated Hammer reports via QEC that Reaper forces on Earth are shutting down!"

A smile crept up Ashley's cheeks, cautious optimism returning. She laced her fingers together in a gesture of prayer and shook them together. But something was holding whispers of hope at bay.

"Jeff. Something is wrong." EDI's normally calm voice had an edge of …fear? Ash reentered the cockpit, still squeezing her gloved fingers tightly. _God, I hate being right. Let me be wrong._

Joker and Ash both spoke at once, "EDI?" Joker's darting fingers continued to swipe and adjust the Normandy, but at a more frantic, uneven pace. He could only glance at the AI mech from the corner of his concerned eye.

"Report," Ashley demanded. "What did the Crucible release?"

Several screens appeared on EDI's console showing tickers with algorithms and lines of code, all gibberish to Ash. "It would appear a concentrated electromagnetic pulse targeting Reaper signatures is using the mass relay network as a buoy system to broadcast the signal."

 _Reaper signatures…_ Relief flooded through Ash for a moment, before something nagged at the back of her mind. _Everything attached to Reapers will be wiped out… ground husk forces, Hades cannons, Sovereign-class ships.. Isn't that good news? Or am I forgetting something?_

Emergency sensors suddenly started wailing in the cockpit. Sparks ignited from several consoles. Several techs outside the cockpit shouted in alarm.

The AI's mech body, normally focused on her piloting functions, pulled away. EDI grabbed at her temples as though in pain. "I cannot explain it. The pulse is ...calling to me. It is strange. I feel… afraid."

"What—what's wrong, EDI?" Ash asked while Joker shouted at EDI to stay with him and that they'll get through this, they'll outrun it. Lights across all decks started to flicker uncontrollably and the turbulence grew rockier. Tints of orange and red started to appear along the blue edges of the crackling kinetic barrier.

EDI's body jerked uncontrollably while her voice comically sped up and slow down. "Proximity alert. The Normandy cannot overcome the velocity of the EMP. Estimated time before wave hits: 124.4 seconds."

More sparks showered the cockpit, blending in neatly with the points of light whisking horizontally by above the speed of light. Joker shouted at Ash to help EDI, whose body had jerked sideways and convulsed on the ground. Uncertain how to attend to a synthetic comrade, Ash was surprised at how heavy EDI was and how much her thigh and side ached from pushing the mech upright.

"EDI, what's the status? What will happen when the pulse hits us?" A cold wave washed over Ashley as she suddenly realized, just a second before EDI replied. _…Wait, targeting Reaper signatures…_

"The Normandy will be knocked offline and be without power or life support. **…I…** will be offline. All systems integrated through me will be in danger of shut down and the ship will be adrift until a full system restart." Joker squawked in alarm. He demanded to know why, how this was happening. There wasn't time to explain.

Cronos Station flashed into Ashley's mind. Had it only been hours ago? _How did we get here?_ The information hidden away with Cerberus had disgusted and horrified Ash. How far gone Shepard was before they rebuilt him. How the Illusive Man manipulated Shepard with his teammates. How the Illusive Man caved to his own insane experiments in his desperation to control the Reapers. _…I hope that bastard is dead, after all he's done. I hope Shepard found that traitor on the Citadel and put a bullet between his stupid, glowing eyes._

But one video log in particular sobered Ash now. Two years ago, Ash followed her Commander to the Moon to shut down a rogue virtual intelligence at an Alliance testing facility. Standard procedure. That rogue intelligence, upgraded with Reaper technology stolen from Sovereign, was now sitting on the floor in front of Ashley. And that intelligence was going to die.

EDI looked up at Ashley with pleading eyes. Her orange visor flickered unsteadily. She asked to be helped up. Even though it caused her serious pain, Ashley had to oblige.

"What should we do, EDI?" Ash hated how cool and professional her voice sounded. Because Joker immediately knew something was wrong. "What are you talking about, Williams? We're gonna outrun this goddamn thing, is what we're gonna do."

"Jeff. In 103.9 seconds, the power of the Crucible will overtake us. And when it does, the Normandy… I… will die. I won't let that happen." EDI touched Ash's hand tentatively, then wrapped around it tightly. "Lieutenant Commander Williams, I need you to escort me to the AI core in the medbay. I need you help me reinstate my shackles to disentangle my integration in the Normandy's systems."

Joker's voice was high in sputtering protest. "But you can't do that! That would be like cutting your head off. That—that'll kill you!"

"I will be fine, Jeff," EDI said, her voice briefly returning to normal. "The important thing is to keep the Normandy operational. I will inform the specialists and engineers that they will be regaining control of core systems. I hope they remember how they work." A pause. "That was a joke."

Ash wrapped an arm around EDI's mech body and hauled it to its feet. Specialist Traynor appeared at her elbow, also offering support. The (three?) women pushed forward through the CIC as Ash barked orders for everyone to clear the way and to brace for impact. EDI made it to the elevator mostly of her own accord, but a spray of sparks in the elevator indicated her resolve was faltering.

Joker announced over the intercom that the EMP would hit in just under 45 seconds. "44.8, to be exact," EDI corrected as she lurched forward through the opened elevator doors. "Level 3, Crew Deck," announced above them.

It took another 17 seconds to make it past Dr. Chakwas's alarmed shout in the medbay to the AI Core. Liara had sat up from a nearby cot in concern, but a blue hand pressed to her temple indicated she was still unwell.

Traynor immediately jumped for the blue box controls, her expert hands bringing up the necessary screens. Ashley held on to the spasming EDI who was growing unstable but still robotically instructed what parameters needed to be in place for what systems. "We only have 15.2 seconds, Specialist Traynor, so a full reshackle nor backup will be in place in time. But you can set up firewalls to lock me out of engineering, life support, and our key defense systems." Traynor nodded grimly, though the woman's eyes had started to glaze in a desperate attempt to hold back tears.

"What can I do, EDI?" Ash asked, feeling stupid and useless in this situation. She helped the mech over to the low shelf at the back. The lights flickered overhead once again, though EDI's visor illuminated the room in a menacing way.

"Can you tell Jeff that I am …sorry?"

"Sorry for what?"

"I am sorry that I lied to him. I will not be fine. In 8.1 seconds, my systems will overload. I will, for all intents and purposes, die. The Normandy's systems still attached to my consciousness will be offline. Weapons, cyberwarfare suites, some comm frequencies, sleeper pod stasis controls and some redundant backups will be affected."

Ashley held EDI's hands, tracing her thumbs over the mixture of metal and silicon over the robot's knuckles. She didn't know if EDI could feel it, or found it comforting. Behind them, Traynor was announcing her progress in siphoning EDI's control off the Normandy in time to Joker's countdown over the intercom.

Ash thought about what she would want to hear if she knew she was going to die. _Other than Shepard's voice, of course._

"Five!" "Life support!"

EDI's head jerked and twitched as her hands rebelled against Ashley's. Ash recited at a whisper. "I sometimes hold it half a sin…"

"Four!" "Kinetic barriers!"

"…To put in words the grief I feel…" The AI Core lights began strobing at a rapid pace as EDI's pelvis arched in the air from her laying position on the shelf.

"Three!" "Prim'ry control systems!"

Sparks spat from EDI's joints. "…For words, like Nature, half reveal…"

"Two!" "Second'ry control systems!"

"…And half conceal the Soul within." EDI's entire body vibrated as though in danger of coming apart. The Normandy vibrated with her.

"One!"

EDI's eyes closed and she smiled for a second. "...I love you, Jeff."

The entire ship lurched as the engines went dead. Traynor and Ashley were plunged into darkness, except for a few seconds of brilliant light as a red-orange corona of energy passed through the room on its race to the edges of the galaxy. A few seconds later, emergency lights kicked on. Both women heard confused murmurs outside before Joker's voice returned to the intercom.

"The Normandy just got knocked offline by whatever the hell the Crucible did. Full system restart in progress. EDI, I need a system scan. We're adrift and I don't know where the hell we're at."

A pregnant pause made Ashley hold her breath. "EDI? EDI, come in," Joker asked over the intercom. "AI Core, come in," the pilot paged them directly. His voice was still unreadable for tone, firm and professional.

Traynor's breath hitched as she moved to speak, but Ash held up a hand to silence her. _No, I should be the one to do it. It's my responsibility._ "Joker, this is Williams in the AI Core. EDI is offline. We need to land the Normandy for a full system scrub."

"…I don't understand."

"Joker. EDI is gone."

"She can't be gone. She's the Normandy. We're on the Normandy, so EDI is here."

"Joker. She's gone. The pulse must've had a kill switch for synthetic intelligences, not just Reapers. EDI's gone." _Synthetic intelligences... Oh shit._ Ash felt like she was going to throw up. Her knees buckled and her head swam with pain. Suddenly the AI Core felt claustrophobic and suffocating.

_The Crucible kills synthetics. All of them. EDI was an AI. …the geth. The geth that helped us and gave the quarians back their homeworld. Are they just scrap metal now? After all they did to help us?_

The next thought actually made Ashley throw up. She felt Traynor's hand on her back, patting it lightly in comfort. But there was no comfort. _Didn't—didn't the Illusive Man bring Shepard back with synthetic parts? Is Shepard—no. But what if—no._

_Is… Shepard… dead?_

"What—what the shit? But I—but she—" The intercom cut out before Joker could descend into hysterics. Ash wanted to join him. She wanted to curl up in the duct system and never be found again. Traynor made light shushing noises as she patted Ashley's back, then helped the weak Spectre to her feet.

Both women clung to each other as they walked to the elevator in a daze. A recording of EDI's voice in the elevator made Traynor burst into tears when the doors opened. "Level 2, CIC." They approached Samantha's console. Ashley took the two steps up to lean against the railing overlooking the galaxy map. Her head dropped down as her back arched, using the railing to prop her up as she took long ragged breaths.

"Lieutenant Commander?" Samantha's voice was still shaky.

"Report, Specialist."

"Some QEC comms are coming online, though we'll need a full diagnostic to determine how extensive the damage is." Ash impatiently repeated for Samantha to report.

"It's—it's Admiral Hackett, ma'am. He's issuing an Alliance-wide broadcast on all emergency channels." Samantha shrank under Ashley's chilling stare, and bit her lip.

"He's asking for all fleets to report in and all available ships to return to Earth. For clean-up."

"Already? They're already starting to clean up Earth from the invasion?"

"No, ma'am."

Ashley's breathing started to accelerate. She knew the news was bad. She didn't know how bad. She didn't want to know. She wondered how long it would take before she hyperventilated.

"It's to clean up… the—the Crucible. The Crucible was destroyed. So was—so was the Citadel."

Ash threw up again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Recap of Ash quotes (spoken during ME1 and ME3) during Shepard's section are from Tennyson's "Ulysses" and Henley's "Invictus."
> 
> Ashley quoted "In Memoriam A.H.H." by Tennyson for EDI.
> 
> I hope Destruction was at least understandable as a choice for Shepard. Well, sensibly erratic anyway, since he's lost his grip on coherent thought. I felt it best addressed what Mass Effect was about at its core: Choice. Freedom to make mistakes and try something different next time.


	16. Pray: End

_...But deliver us from evil..._

Ashley's forehead rested against cool glass, desperate to steal relief for the pounding in her head. It had grown into constant pain over the past few hours. Part of it was comforting, a sign that she was still alive. But mostly it was a sign that she would never be free of pain for as long as she lived.

The Lieutenant Commander was sitting in the corner of the Life Support chamber, arms wrapped around her bent knees as she watched the engineers below examine the drive core. _Way to step up, LC. Everyone is making repairs and doing their part while you sulk away in Life Support. Real mature. …what else do you want me to do, Brain? Shepard is dead._

That shut her(self) up.

It refused to sink in, no matter how many different times or ways Ashley repeated it.

"Shepard is dead." _Right there. Nothing._ _Shouldn't I feel something? Why don't I feel anything?_

"Shepard's never coming back." Again, nothing. _Why? Why does it feel like a lie that I don't believe? …You believed it the first time, Williams._

Ash shook her head and went back to watching the work below. Supervising, if you will. After all, she was now the commanding officer of the SSV Normandy SR-2. It was the last message their damaged QEC had received before an abrupt landing on an unnamed planet _(GR1-355b or something memorable like that)_ outside the Asgard system. That, and the war was over.

 _Over_. Hackett gave Ashley emergency command of the SR-2 and said the Reapers were dead. A cycle of extinction millions of years in the making had been stopped against impossible odds.

Under normal circumstances, the ship would be bursting with celebration. Hidden stashes of drinks would be shared, stories exchanged, a bright new future planned for with delight and anticipation.

But there was no celebrating, drinking or planning. Instead, the crew of the Normandy solemnly evaluated their current situation. With EDI's shut down, the ship had fallen adrift out of FTL travel in an unpopulated system and was caught in the gravitational pull of an unremarkable jungle world. Specialist Traynor's research determined this system had been under intense negotiations with several Turian mining and Alliance colony companies for decades with no stalemate broken. "Habitable but empty," the dossier said.

That was exactly how Ashley felt; habitable, but empty.

Joker had been surprisingly professional during the unscheduled crash landing. His jaw had clenched when someone (not Ashley, she was watching her mouth) made the comment if he remembered how to pilot this thing by himself. Every available engineer not injured in the bumpy landing was huddled either in the comm room, the AI Core or the drive core… attempting to scrub the system of EDI's now corrupted server.

After dividing up crew tasks, Ashley had gone outside to take in the surroundings. Two moons shone in the early morning (or was it evening in this system?) sky. Several distant mountains peeked through lush tree branches. A half kilometer of vegetation had been flattened in the Normandy's wake, but the kinetic barriers had absorbed a good portion of damage. Most of the damage was inside _. It usually is. In more ways than one_ , she sighed ruefully.

She found Joker standing on the tip of the port wing lobbing broken tree branches off the edge of a cliff. Limp over to a branch, pick it up, throw. Limp, grab, throw.

"Hey."

"Hey," Joker replied gruffly, absorbed in his mundane task. Ashley took up a spot along the edge with her booted feet dangling below. Just sitting and waiting. She refused to add thinking to that list. Thinking hurt too much.

It was several minutes of limp, grab and throw before Joker sat down next to her. He rolled a stick in his hands thoughtfully.

"I just… I can't believe she's gone. I was—I mean… We had something—" Joker trailed off, gripping the branch hard and starting to bend it. "She didn't care, you know? About my disease or thought I was gonna break any minute."

Ash said nothing but nodded lightly, encouraging him to continue. She needed him to keep talking so she didn't think about Shepard.

"It sounds stupid. Falling for a machine. She never told me I couldn't do something… I guess because she wasn't human and didn't understand that kind of concern." He snapped the branch in half. "I didn't care that she wasn't a real person. EDI was real to me. I just wish I'd told her that."

Joker sighed and whipped the branch off into the distance like an ancient boomerang. It was too far away to hear where it landed. _Maybe it didn't. Maybe it's still going._

"She knew, Joker," Ash finally replied. She was lightly shredding loose leaves into little piles, then holding up her palm to her lips to watch the pieces blow away. "EDI cared about you. Really cared. She did all this so you'd survive. She wanted you to live.

"If you don't mind me asking, what was she like? When you were together?" Ash paused a moment before amending, "You can leave out the sordid details. I know all about your extranet bookmarks."

The pilot chuckled lightly. "Don't worry, LC. We hadn't quite reached that phase of human evolution yet. Much to the lament of several fetish sites who would've paid top credit for those details." Ashley did not want to know how he knew that. Or if he'd had a sex vid in the works to satisfy their curiosity.

"No, we just …talked. We were taking it slow. Feeling things out. She was—I don't know. Funny. Interesting. Minus some of her questions about human behavior, she was a regular person. An amazing person. A—a woman. To me, anyway."

Ashley nodded in understanding. There was one question she wanted to ask, but under the circumstances would sound heartless. _Since when have you cared about being politically correct, Williams? ...since I got put in charge, Brain._ "Joker... Jeff... Did you... see a future there? With EDI?"

He rubbed his palms together, feeling out the callouses, before loping to a sitting position next to Ash. "...I dunno, Williams. I wasn't stupid. I knew people, society, wouldn't accept us. I had trouble with it sometimes, and she was perceptive about wondering about taboos in organic culture. And sometimes I didn't care. I'd found someone who was, y'know, happy with me being me." Joker sighed as he achily adjusted his position. "What about you?"

"What about me what?"

His cap tilted as he shot Ash a withering look. "What about you and Shepard and the future? And don't act shocked, I've known since the SR-1. You could cut the sexual tension with a mass effect laser. EDI and I wrote friend-fiction about you two. Pretty hilarious. We wrote this steamy reunion on Horizon where you—"

Ash might have blushed or objected, but she'd stopped listening. Hearing Shepard's name was painful. Hearing Shepard's name in a conversation about the future they didn't have was agony. _Fair's fair, LC. You don't get to probe Joker's personal life and not have to reciprocate. ...was there a future there, even? He said he wanted more...  
_

"I don't... I don't know. We never talked about it. We lived in the moment. It's all we had." Ashley leaned forward to rub her forearm thoughtfully. Painfully, though there was no wound there. "Now that I think about... there are a lot of things that I don't know about Shepard. His favorite book. His favorite song. If he liked to cook or where he saw himself in ten years.

"I wanted to find out, though. I really—I wanted it all. The stupid dates that end badly but give you something to talk and laugh about next time. The chance to tell the Alliance brass to shove their fraternization policy up their ass, because Spectres don't care. To be stupid and ordinary and happy, together. We were supposed to do this together." She trailed off, her voice husky with regret.

Joker brought his knees up to his chest and rested his chin on them with a grunt of effort. He was thoughtful for a few minutes before speaking again. "We should honor EDI. She died to save us. And Shepard and Anderson. They're all gone. We should—we should do something." Ashley agreed. They sat together in silence, listening to the chirp of alien insects in the distance.

The Lieutenant Commander shook away the memory from her sitting position in Life Support. Grief was sitting outside her mind, patiently waiting to be let in. To consume Ashley Williams once more for daring to hold on to Shepard.

 _Why? Why did Death want him so badly? He was a good man. The best, even. He gave up everything to fight._ Outside of fighting, Shepard had next to nothing. He read a little. Had some interest in music. He liked action vids. Ashley had no idea if he could draw or wanted to retire to a beach and whittle or wanted anything ordinary. _Maybe… maybe that's why. Maybe Shepard can't be ordinary. Doesn't know how. It's extraordinary or nothing._

_Shepard had no possessions. He had a uniform, a gun, and a goal._

_And me. He had me._

Next to her were three freshly etched placards. Every now and then Ash picked them up and shuffled them like playing cards. _Nearly time._ The shuffling motion was lightly comforting and kept the beast of Grief at bay for a little while longer. She paused on each one as they shuffled.

 **EDI.** Enhanced Defense Intelligence. A collection of programs that created a whole intelligence. _Wasn't that basically what the geth were? Is that all we are, even as organics? Thought process with the ability to wonder who we are and where we came from? We look for God in the black of the universe while they know their God …and want to surpass them._ _EDI could have turned on the Normandy crew at any time. Run away. Self-preservation. But she knew she could die and stuck around anyway._

 **David Anderson.** Admiral of the Human Systems Alliance. Mentor. Hero. Friend. _He stayed behind to give hope to humanity on Earth. He had no guarantee we'd ever return, but he still stayed to keep everyone safe. Three years ago he gave up the Normandy for Shepard. Three months ago he did it again. Because he believed in us when no one else did. He gave up everything for humanity. Not in the twisted, delusional way that the Illusive Man did. Anderson didn't seek the easy way out._

 **Commander Shepard.** The first human Spectre. Hero of the Citadel. The great unifier of the galaxy. _It's strange they left his first name off._ _He wasn't a man to the galaxy. He was an idea. A thing. A tool? No, a shepherd. Shepard the shepherd. Appropriate enough. He's still a man. Just… the best man anyone could hope for._

Samantha paged Ashley over the intercom. It was time. _I want more time_.

They gathered together at the memorial wall on the Crew Deck to mourn their friends. Just a simple ceremony. As newly minted commanding officer, the task had fallen to Ashley to lead the memorial service for the crew.

EDI's name was placed on the wall below Thane Krios. Joker insisted she be remembered as an official crewmate. Rightly so. Donnelly and Daniels both sniffed in sadness while Samantha chewed her lip to bite back tears.

Ashley's eyes couldn't help but wander over her former SR-1 crewmates and the new names of the ones she never got to meet, though always returning to one in particular. _Kaidan Alenko._

Her survivor's guilt had waned over the years, mostly in the form of channeled anger at Shepard when he died. But Kaidan?

 _You shouldn't be up there, Kaidan. You should've been here. Fighting. You would have never given up. Would you have doubted Shepard? Back on Horizon?_ _If Shepard and I hadn't… would he have picked you? Saved you? Would you have lowered your weapon on the Citadel the second Shepard showed up? I know you would have made Spectre for sure. Would you have done all the things I failed to do over the years?_

 _Admiral David Anderson_. The blue placard scarred the half-full memorial wall on the Normandy SR-2. It was neatly etched and had a faint criss-crossing pattern. Steve Cortez had pried two even pieces from the navy blue wing of his damaged Kodiak to create two new names. Two men whose lives they all celebrated and mourned.

Anderson's name had been placed to the sound of muted praise. The Alliance crew had deeply respected the man, while the alien squad mates (aside from Javik, who was characteristically mute) spoke quietly of the Admiral's bravery.

The second name bit into Ashley's gloves, for she gripped it tightly. _Commander Shepard._

The crew shuffled anxiously. Audible sniffs were heard from Samantha and Tali'Zorah, while Cortez and Garrus held their chins high over crossed arms in guarded respect. Liara stood impassively with her hands clasped behind her back, eyes trained on the floor. Ash briefly wondered what James would be doing. Maybe he's in London right now, standing beside the galaxy's finest, honoring Shepard and Anderson and the geth.

Ashley took a reluctant step forward, wanting her moment to be her own. Her gloved fingers traced over the grooves of letters, extracting the memories that were locked in his simple name.

 _Commander_ _Shepard. Spectre. Hero. Savior. Martyr. Mine._

_How did we get here, Skipper?_

Ashley leaned forward to place the name on the wall, but a sound gave her pause. Metal jingled around her neck, then something slipped around her shirt. The adjustment was uncomfortable and odd, so she turned her torso away from the crew and stuck her hand down the top of her uniform.

_Shepard's tags. Their chain broke and they caught on my shirt._

The symbolism of it almost made her start crying, when she'd been doing so well to keep it together. When Ash pulled on the tags so they wouldn't slip down her shirt, she felt a tug around her neck. _Great. They're caught. I don't have time for this_ , she sighed though she was briefly grateful the irritation had stilled the heated tears poised in the corners of her eyes. Ashley tried again, but again the tags wouldn't budge.

Upon lifting the tags to her lowered chin, she inspected the light metal tickling her collarbone. Shepard's broken cord had become impossibly twisted around her own Alliance dog tags. They jangled together helplessly.

_This happened the second I was about to put his name on the wall. …That's stupid, Williams. You think this is some message from the afterlife? He didn't send you one before._

_…Because he wasn't really dead before._

_And ...he isn't dead now._

"Ashley?" Liara asked, breaking the awkward silence. Ash felt a hand alight on her shoulder as her peripheral vision spied blue fingertips.

Her fingers left the tangled tags to run over the placard letters again. "…No."

"No what?" The asari turned Ashley's shoulder to make eye contact. It hurt to see those sapphire blue eyes glassy with tears.

"He's alive."

"Ashley..." Liara shook her head and gripped Ashley's upper arms, trying to will her to understand.

Ash shrugged herself out of Liara's grasp and pulled away. The eyes of her friends stared back in muted pain. She willed them to understand. "He's alive. I doubted him once and I lost him. That's not happening again."

_Hold on, Shepard. You hold on, dammit._

"Traynor, come with me." Ashley pushed past the stunned faces of her crewmates to grab Samantha's wrist. The Comms Specialist was dumbfounded, her cheeks still wet with tears, but she allowed herself to be dragged to the elevator.

Pressing the glowing "2," Ash held up a hand to stop the other crew from joining them in the elevator, though most were still too shocked to even move. Liara managed a firm, questioning "Ashley, wait!" before the doors closed.

Traynor stared back at the Lieutenant Commander, too confused to speak. Ashley fired up her Omni-tool and began rapidly navigating. She was dully aware that her left hand still gripped Shepard's nameplate, but she was too focused on her Omni-tool.

"Are you going to tell me what's going on, Lieutenant Commander? We're in the middle of a funeral." Traynor's voice cracked and she sniffled again.

"No, we're not, Specialist." Ash hated the gruff tone she'd taken, but it couldn't be helped. She was in soldier mode and nothing could distract her. "I need you to override comm database protocols. I need access to Commander Shepard's contact list."

Traynor wiped her nose with the underside of her wrist, but the opportunity for work was at least positively distracting. If she was busy, she didn't have time to be pathetic. "I can do that. Why do you need it?"

"I need to call in a favor."

"What favor?"

"All of them."

* * *

_...Guide this one, Kalahira, and he will be a companion to you as he was to me._

Shepard closed his eyes, the breathtaking view of Earth clouded by the haze from the decaying Citadel. For just a second, his ears picked up something under all the chaos; the high-pitched creak of metal buckling, the thunderous growl of flame devouring oxygen on its way out of the tubing, the low whir of energy coursing through the Crucible… _what was it?_ He didn't get to find out.

Pressure. Everything was pressure. It was different this time, though.

The blackness was there. It was always there. You get used to the black. Even without the pressure. Before, the black found a friend with the orange. Heat. Energy. Life. Death. The black was spinning while the orange was constant, sort of below, at the back.

The first time: there had been two countdowns. The first was the black's. It was stealing all the oxygen. You could see it sometimes, a glistening white spray that crossed the spinning black. Gave it color and life where it was taking color and life. The second countdown was for the orange because it was accompanying something else. Sometimes a horizon crossed the black, beckoning, waiting, wanting. The orange was the horizon's friend, helping it along.

They were both competing for who could take Shepard first. In the end, they both won. Or lost. It depended on how you looked at it.

"Commander Shepard?"

This time, the orange and black were one and the same. They didn't fight this time. They worked together. The orange flames engulfed Shepard while the black followed, wiping out memory and life in its wake. They lanced up and down his broken armor, electric sparks singing through his bones and veins. Where orange touched, only black remained. The pain was sharp but brief and quickly numbed.

An icy wave washed over Shepard, starting at his hands and knees. It spread both upward and downward, his legs were already lost to nothing by the time his shoulders and back succumbed.

Glowing implants, nanites, cybernetics, weaves, enhancements, improvements. They were all bought and paid for on the Reapers' dime, stolen tech from Saren Arterius's remains. And now they slept, hard and fused, useless and black. The Crucible found them first, saw them for what they were. Unnatural. They don't belong here. Just like the others. They hid in the black for millennia, and back to the black they go.

 _You are hardware, we are software_. Legion's explanation came to Shepard sometimes. All that Shepard used to be, Reaper-wise, was bone and flesh that protected his brain and organs. Should all that die, Shepard still had his mind, while EDI and the geth cannot divorce themselves from the Reapers. It's where they went their separate ways.

He wanted to say that he was sorry. That he hoped they might understand. Shepard knew Legion would, but would EDI? It— **she** was scared back at the FOB. She was brave. She was better than many organics Shepard had known. She was worthy. But she wasn't enough.

_I'm sorry, EDI. I wasn't enough, either. To save you. Or Legion. Thane. Mordin. Kaidan. Earth. Thessia. Palaven. Everyone. I hope it's finally enough now. That what we sacrifice is worth what we save._

"Commander."

Pressure. Everything was pressure. But …Shepard could feel it. It was subtle at first. His hands briefly felt it, his chest. Light touched his eyelids before darting away. He remembered seeing Alchera spinning below him, fire greeting him every step of the way. Just before he hit the ground, he woke up in a spastic jerk. Was it a dream? Was **this** a dream? Was his whole life a dream?

Floating again. But this landscape was familiar. Earth. Home. No, not home. Homeworld.

Home is someplace else.

Someone else.

Another dream.

Speaking of dreams… One haunted Shepard back on the SR-2, before the Reapers came. Haunted in a good way. Even though it was steeped in the black, it was the good kind. He had hurt then too, but a voice made it better.

_"They tried to make me leave, Commander. But I wouldn't. Not until I knew where you were. Because I'll always have your back."_

… _Ash._

"Shepard!"

Pressure. Everything was pressure. It was concentrated on his legs, he was buried nearly head to toe in pressure. There had been dizzying vertigo at one point. Free from pressure, but then it returned. Seconds, minutes, hours (and days?) ago. The pressure was all that remained. Shepard waited for it to fade.

But it didn't. He stopped hating the pressure and started to embrace it. It was something, at least. He hung on to it this time. Pressure was a piece of home. He remembered a good heat and pressure. He at least got to have that once. Twice, even.

Her breath on his face. Whispers in his ear. She hovered over him, her body pressed to his. He never wanted that pressure to end. She was part of him, body and soul. He had clung to her curves as sanctuary and safety. Nothing could hurt him in that embrace. That was home. That was where he belonged. _...so how did I get here?_

Not here. Not with all this pressure. Not everything is pressure.

Shepard's breath exploded into his lungs. He couldn't move, the burden on his body was too great. But his eyes finally opened. It was a painful haze of light that he couldn't make sense of, so he had to close them once more. It's like his eyes weren't working properly. Broken.

They can be fixed. It can all be fixed.

Shepard just needed to get back home. Now, where was that?

"Shepard."

Close. So close. Shepard just needed to…

"I'm—I'm here."

"Skipper. I've got you. Hold on. Just hold on, dammit."

_Always._

_Amen._


	17. Not Without You: Fifth Fleet

Shepard groaned as he awoke, struggling to regain control of his extremely heavy head. His eyes felt grainy and dry and they deeply resented his attempts to open them. When he did, he couldn't make sense of what he saw: blurs of white, blue and black. He thought he saw dark hair hovering over his face, tickling his cheeks.

He tried to put the name to the blurry shape, but his throat was too dry. _Ash. Ash!_ Nothing but a gurgled swallow.

It was a few more minutes (hours?) before Shepard tried to open his eyes again. Try to make sense of things again. This time it wasn't an illusion. A face floated in front of Shepard's, followed by a sharp beam of light that jerked right, then left, in one eye then the other. He thought he heard his name.

When the dark hair swept away, Shepard lifted his shoulders. "W-wait!" His leaden hands reached for her, but biotic blue pushed them back down.

"Easy now, Commander. Don't force me to knock you out again." No, not Ash. This female voice was accented.

"Mir—Miranda?" Shepard asked sleepily, coughing some to clear his impossibly dry throat. "What are you—how long was I out?"

Miranda Lawson's face was hard and serious but for the light twinkle in her icy blue eyes. The operative, clad in an Alliance medical uniform, turned aside to check Shepard's vitals on the holo screen. Satisfied with what she saw, Miranda powered up her Omni-tool before answering.

"To answer your first almost-question, I'm here at the request of the Alliance. More specifically, one Lieutenant Commander Ashley Williams." No small talk, no chitchat. Miranda got straight to the point.

"Ash? Ashley brought you here?" Shepard coughed most of his response out and tried to sit up and look around. _Where is she?_

"Yes. Your new XO can be quite ...persuasive. She cleared me with the Alliance brass to take over your treatment and reconstruction."

Before Shepard could follow up with a million more wheezy questions, Miranda interrupted him in her brusque, efficient way. "And to answer your second question: six weeks."

The Commander stopped struggling at that revelation and fell still _. Six weeks? The war has been over for that long? What the hell happened to me? Where the hell is everyone?_

Miranda continued to swipe through her Omni-tool interface, updating status reports and organizing treatment protocols. Miss Lawson was never one to delay her reports if she couldn't help it. "Once you were recovered from the ruins of the Citadel, we had to place you in a medically-induced coma to begin treatment, which was extensive." Her lightly glossed lips curled in a small smile before returning to seriousness once more. "Not quite brought-back-from-the-dead 'extensive,' but I still had my work cut out for me. Lucky for you, some anonymous donors fit the bill for your recovery. Spared no expense, really.

"Minus the living accommodations, which are far less lavish than I am obviously used to..." _She's making a joke? When did Miranda get so sardonic and funny?_ "...it has been about on par with Project Lazarus in terms of difficulty."

"Was I—was I dead?" Shepard immediately regretted the question.

Miranda finally diverted her attention away from her Omni-tool to meet Shepard's eyes once more. "No." She opened her mouth to elaborate, but a light _ping!_ sounded from her wrist. She had somewhere to be.

"You'll have to excuse me, Commander. I know you have more questions, but there is something that requires my immediate attention. I am forwarding my lab notes to your Omni-tool directly. Mostly to spare you the trouble of escaping and digging around my terminals later." There was that twinkle in her eye again. They only worked together for a few months against the Collectors, but Miranda knew Shepard only too well. "I'd prefer you stay in bed. I will be back to check on you later."

And just like that, she disappeared through the swishing double doors. It took a few seconds for Shepard to get used to the silence before he evaluated where he was. A large irregular shaped window was on his left, with Earth taking up most of the view and a dull Moon hidden partly behind it. There was a large chair with a footrest in the corner and a neatly folded Alliance-blue blanket over the top. The opposite wall was covered in datapads and pictures, well wishes and congratulations. A light coating of dust indicated they'd been there for quite some time.

Shepard gave his heavy limbs another go before giving up in sweaty, exhausted defeat. He didn't understand why his body was resisting his commands, but the dull ache in his legs and side pushed the worry away. He finally dragged his left wrist over his sternum. The Commander didn't have anything better to do other than check his messages, after all.

 _13,455 new messages. Good God_ , Shepard sighed. _What I wouldn't give for a yeoman right now to make sense of this shit._ A quick search found Miranda's vid packet, which Shepard tapped to view the first entry.

Miranda Lawson's face appeared, hunched over a low desk. "This is Operative Miranda Lawson, freelance medical consultant with the SSV Orizaba. I have been given C-level access by Admiral Steven Hackett to oversee treatment of Commander Shepard. Initial diagnosis is as follows:

"Petechial scarring along Shepard's lower extremities. The left foot, shin, kneecap and tibia are severely crushed from heavy debris. The right is similarly damaged, with the tibia remaining intact. I count 3 floating ribs, one which has ruptured the spleen and there is a bullet lodged in Shepard's left kidney with collateral damage along the large intestine.

"Hairline fractures are currently too numerous to count at this time, and some are heavy with scar tissue. Second degree burns along the metacarpals of both hands to the elbow. Embedded shrapnel is also approximated to be in the hundreds and is interfering with some of my deep-tissue scans." Miranda looked back up from the list she was reading to face the camera, rubbing some sleep from her eyes. She leaned back in her chair, tapping her chin in speculation.

"Regrowing Shepard's skin and limbs will be a time consuming process. I am currently obtaining additional consults regarding the replacement of the hardened skin weaves with home grown substitutes. In essence, most of the Project Lazarus retrofits have been rendered obsolete and need to be replaced. I find myself missing Dr. Mordin Solus's enthusiasm for the challenge of working within pre-existing parameters rather than starting fresh," Miranda sighed before continuing.

"Bone structure in particular might require extensive amputation, cloning and years of rehabilitation. The patient's current state, while no longer life threatening after the repair of the internal bleeding, is still hardly ideal. The nanites and cybernetic reinforcement of Shepard's skeleton have fused. Rather than promote healing and improving reflexes, the result of the Crucible has had quite the opposite effect. The damage has added density to bone structure which puts undo stress on musculature.

"Shepard's condition will require a lower gravity environment to maintain a high quality of life, and will be more susceptible to infection and injury. It is unknown at this time if erosion of the malfunctioning cybernetics could enter the bloodstream and cause septicemia, or increase risk for autoimmune disease or cancer…"

 _Enough_ , Shepard sighed as he paused the recording. _I get it. I was hurt bad. I need time to start to recover._ To emphasize this, he tried to wiggle his toes with some success. But overall he just felt achy and trapped. And again, awake in a strange place with no concept of time lost.

_Where is everyone? Are they all right?_

Suddenly, Shepard's Omni-tool chirped. Miranda's face appeared in a tiny screen on the interface. "You have an incoming message, Shepard."

"Are you screening my calls, Miss Lawson?" Shepard smirked back, though he was relieved to be talking to someone. He hoped she wasn't about to force him to go for a leisurely jog to escape marauding mechs (though part of him would prefer the excitement).

"Not on purpose. Though if I had my way, your Omni-tool would be locked down from all distractions." The wall behind Miranda blurred by as she walked. "No, part of my agreement to take over your treatment was to inform Lieutenant Commander Williams when you awoke."

"So the incoming message is from—?"

"Lieutenant Commander Williams."

It took all of Shepard's energy to repress the glee bouncing inside him. "Patch her through. Please."

Miranda's haughty expression was replaced by snowy static lines. It was another torturous pair of seconds before Ashley appeared. "Shepard? Shepard, are you there?"

"Ash." Shepard sighed with relief. She was alive. She looked well. Her long hair was partially wrapped in a tight bun while her long bangs framed her cheekbones. A few tired lines creased Ashley's brow and around her eyes, but the bright brown of her eyes sparkled back.

"About time you woke up, Shepard. What did I tell you about me and sitting still? I was going crazy waiting around the Orizaba for you to get your shit together." Pearly white teeth glinted back in teasing delight behind her full lips.

"How bad were you hurt, Ash? When I left the Normandy you were—" Shepard couldn't even finish the sentence. Even under a dark haze for six long weeks, nightmares had still crept into Shepard's sleep. Some were about revenge from the geth. Others were distortions of reality where he'd failed and the Reapers had won. The worst was that Harbinger had returned to finish the job and destroyed the Normandy. With Ash on it.

"I'm fine, Shepard. I was back on my feet after a good dose of medi-gel. And after we found you on the Citadel I stayed aboard the Orizaba for ten days under observation. I'm fine," Ashley repeated. Shepard asked to see. She laughed and put the datapad camera down and took a few steps back.

The aquarium of Shepard's cabin jostled into view behind her. Ashley held her hands out and gave him the same expectant look he'd given her the night before Cronos Station. Turning to one side, then the other, she then lifted up her hoodie to show off a fading dark circle on her taut abdomen. She was wearing his favorite N7 hoodie. It was long and loose, almost like a nightgown. She belonged in it.

Returning to the camera, Ashley smirked, "I'm not doing a strip tease, no matter how secure this channel is. You'll just have to take my word that I'm okay …and rest assured you can do a thorough …examination… in person when I get back." Her smile straightened. Down to business. "How are you feeling, Shepard?"

Shepard shook his head to both sides, cracking his neck. "I …don't know, Ash. I mean, I think I remember everything that happened before the Crucible fired. From what little Miranda has told me it looks like I was hurt pretty bad."

"Bad doesn't even begin to cover it, Shepard." Ashley sighed. "Everyone was saying you were dead. That the Citadel was destroyed. I was…" She trailed off. It hurt too much to say.

"How did they find me, then? I remember waking up in rubble after… I don't know," Shepard rubbed his temple with his free right hand but the memories wouldn't organize properly.

"Do you want to hear this now, or get the full debrief when I get back? The Normandy is about two days out from the Sol system. We've been running around Inner Council space for the last month trying to get QEC buoys in place and keep merc bands from taking over recovering areas." Ashley's voice was smooth with practiced authority.

Shepard couldn't decide if he was proud of her or slightly hurt that the galaxy had gone on without him. _Buck up, marine._ "If you've got time, I'd like to know what happened."

A voice paged overhead, momentarily distracting Ash. Her eyes returned to Shepard's. "We're about to meet up with the turian fleets to get more comms integrated, so I've only got a minute or two. The short version is I was given emergency control of the Normandy while you've been out. After the Crucible fired, Normandy was knocked offline and we made an emergency landing."

Before Shepard could ask, she patiently reassured him that everyone was fine before continuing, "I also hope you weren't saving your contact list for a rainy day, because I called in every favor everyone's owed you for the past few years."

 _I think being rescued from what could have been the end of the world counts as one big-ass rainy day_ , Shepard mused.

"You name 'em, I called 'em. Zaeed Massani had Blue Suns flitting around the far reaches. They got eezo for the drive core. Aria T'Loak offered up a smuggler ship to get the spare parts we needed to make repairs. It took about 36 hours to get Normandy back online, but we jumped FTL straight back home."

 _Home_. Shepard nearly forgot he had one of those. And that it was safe from Reapers now.

"The Fifth Fleet was already dispatching rescue teams to the Citadel to look for survivors. I tracked your Justicar friend Samara aboard the Asari fleet and had her flipping rubble with her biotics like it was nothing in no time. Thank God you made such a strong impression on Javik, because we never would have found you without his Prothean …ESP… thing…" Ashley made a wiggling motion with her fingers. Her airy tone dropped to a deeper, more emotional pitch.

"God, Shepard... You looked like shit. You looked dead. I thought—I thought we were too late," her forehead dipped to hide her pained expression. "I thought I'd lost you. Again."

"Ash…" There was nothing else Shepard could say.

Ashley forced the tears back. Even had the courage to smile back at Shepard, though her eyes were still a little glassy. "I would have been so pissed. You're lucky you're a tough old bastard, Commander. Because your XO doesn't take too kindly to disappointment."

' _Disappointment.' Right. Understatement of the year._

"How did Miranda end up patching me up?" Shepard asked, eager to change the subject. He wanted to talk about this more. _Later. We have later now. We have all the later in the world._

Ashley scoffed slightly, "That… took some convincing. The Alliance doctors didn't know what to make of your condition, so I requested Operative Lawson be brought in to consult. She asked for resources. I found them."

Counting off one by one, Ashley's right hand popped up as she tapped her left index fingertip to each extending finger. "Miranda Lawson needed Cerberus resources. I contacted Kasumi Goto to hack and raid what the Third Fleet had recovered from Cronos Station about Project Lazarus. Then Jacob Taylor volunteered Dr. Cole's team to assist with the prospect of 'readapting a complete cybernetic skeletal graph' I think she said.

"Because of the 'sensitive nature' of your treatment, they had to move you to a laboratory rather than a med bay. Something about needing zero g environmental controls. I talked the quarian admirals into donating supplies from their liveships to ensure it was a full clean room. And Liara went to task securing whatever funds and equipment Miranda needed. If I wasn't harassing everyone who still had a comm channel open, Liara certainly was with her Shadow Broker assets. All hands on deck, Skipper."

 _Everyone came together to help me,_ Shepard realized with a swallow. His friends. Allies. They'd all come through. "I—I can't believe you did all that. For me."

"Why?" Angry confusion furrowed Ashley's brow. "Why wouldn't I have done everything to get you home? Wouldn't you have done the same for me?"

"That's not what I—I didn't mean it the way it sounded," Shepard backpedaled. He wasn't sure what he meant, just that he was surprised.

"I sure hope not, because it sounded pretty stupid." Ash glared, but then softened. "I have to go, Shepard. But I'll be home the day after tomorrow. We'll talk. I think we have a lot to talk about."

Shepard grinned, liking more and more the way "home" sounded. "Looking forward to it, Williams. I'll just requisition some cold showers in the meantime." Ashley chuckled, fondly remembering their banter from the SR-1.

Before signing off, Ashley leaned forward. "I remember how much you worried before... That you weren't you and you lost so much being gone. I just wanted you to know that's not going to happen again."

"Well, six weeks isn't two years at least," Shepard agreed.

Ashley shook her head. "That's not what I meant. I mailed you every day you were asleep, Shepard. Every single day. Mostly vids, but some regular emails too. And sometimes more than once a day. I just… I never want to see you doubt yourself again. And we sort of got to talk every day, in a way. I introduced you to my family. I found some old friends. I wanted to make damn sure you knew what you were missing. And that it was waiting for you to wake up." Ashley's voice was husky with emotion.

"Ash…" Shepard was at a loss. Again.

"If you go into your messages, there's a bunch of password protected packets from me. It's something only you'd know the answer to. Gotta make sure your memory still works, too." She smiled lightly again. "Miranda and Traynor set up a direct channel, so I'll message you when I'm local. Williams out."

And just like that, Ash was gone. Shepard fell back into his pillow. He hadn't even realized he'd been straining to sit up. Trying to get every inch closer to wherever she was. _I'll see you soon, Chief._

Painkillers flooded Shepard's system, sending him into a deep sleep for a few more hours. The view outside the port window showed a different section of Earth, possibly the southern hemisphere. He was curious if the Macapá military base was still there, hidden away in the rainforest, training the next batch of Alliance marines. He wondered if anything anywhere would ever be the same as before.

A doctor Shepard didn't recognize entered the room a half hour later and demanded a string of rehabilitation exercises be performed. If he was satisfied with the Commander's efforts, he didn't let on, and soon left Shepard tired and sweaty. Relieved to have privacy once more, Shepard fired up his Omni-tool. _16,916 unread messages._ _God._

A few keystrokes later revealed the packets Ashley was talking about. _She wasn't kidding. 42 unread messages from her alone._ The first one he selected prompted a voice-recognition answer.

_["What did you quote to me when I met my sister at the memorial wall?"]_

_Oh good. An easy one._ "In Memoriam A.H.H. by Tennyson," Shepard said softly. The interface hummed with approval and opened a video featuring Tali's purple mask _. Is this right_ , he wondered before Tali spoke.

"Hold still, Ashley. I can't install this encryption algorithm if you keep fidgeting," Tali'Zorah grumbled, her three-fingered hand taking up a good portion of the screen. "There, now I just need the Normandy's QEC comm protocols." In the background, Ashley asked if it was recording. Tali snickered, "I hope not, otherwise I hope you have a good excuse for not knowing basic comm uplink procedure. Even quarian children can set up an open frequency."

Ash protested in the distance that she was a **soldier** , not an engineer. Tali's fingers made a duck-quacking motion as she teased, "Your mouth is moving, Williams, but all I'm hearing is excuses." Tali disappeared as Samantha Traynor's short bob swept into view. "Don't be so hard on her, Tali. She just missed a lesson in Alliance comm training. Or a few dozen. Or possibly flunked out of the Alliance altogether and we just have her word that she's a Lieutenant Commander. Quick! Run an ID scan to make sure she's really Ashley Williams."

"Laugh it up, you two," Ashley growled as she pushed Samantha out of the way. Traynor confirmed the uplink to the Normandy and requested a test recording. The view dipped and bobbed until it settled in front of Ashley, with Shepard's sleeping form some distance away.

"Hey, Shepard. It's Ash. We found you. It took some doing but we found you. You've gotta sleep for a bit while the doctors take a look at you, but the important thing is we found you. I'm gonna be just down the hall, okay? I'll be here if you need me."

Ash paused a second, then added, "I don't know what the future holds, but I won't lose you a second time. Get better, Skipper. That's an order."

 _End transmission_ popped up on the vid-mail. _Yes ma'am_ , Shepard grinned.

He spent the next day and a half devouring her messages until he couldn't keep his eyes open. Then the painkillers would come, then sleep, rehabilitation, then more messages. It was a comfortable cycle every eight hours or so.

Until a knock at the door.

But instead of Ashley Williams, Joker limped into Shepard's room. Shepard started to smile until he caught the hard set to Joker's jaw.

"Joker. You made it." Simple and neutral.

"It's good to see you, Command—did you know?" Joker just cut to the chase, though Shepard wasn't completely sure what he was asking.

"Did I know what?"

"Did you know what would happen to EDI?" It was the question Shepard had been deftly avoiding. Even when Admiral Hackett had come for a debrief. Short and simple was the tale Shepard had spun. About The Illusive Man. Admiral Anderson. The Crucible. He'd omitted any perceived or real conversations he'd had on the top of the Citadel, as well as the possible options available.

_Would I want to know, if I was them? That there was another choice? How different the galaxy could be? Would they blame me? Hunt me? Kill me? …would I want them to?_

_I told Ashley once not to blame herself for the decisions I made on Virmire. That it was my burden to bear, not hers. Is it the same now? To let everyone else be bettered by the lie so I can be burdened by the truth?_

_Some lies just can't be told. To everyone, anyway._

"Yes," Shepard said quietly.

"Did you know what would happen to the geth? To the relays? The fleets?" A vein in Joker's neck bulged with his suppressed rage.

Shepard repeated once more: "Yes."

Joker took a step closer, his shoulders shaking with anger. He raised his right fist and turned his body in for a swing. Shepard didn't close his eyes or even flinch. He knew he deserved it.

But the punch didn't come. The fist came about but suddenly pulled upright into a salute at Joker's temple. He was saluting Commander Shepard. "I—I'm sorry, Shepard. I just… I needed to know."

"Are you—are we okay?" Shepard asked uncertainly. It couldn't be so simple, this forgiveness. It certainly wasn't for Shepard.

Joker pulled his fingertips down to finish the salute. He reached out and clasped Shepard's wrist on the bed. "If you knew what would happen to EDI and the geth… then you knew what could happen to you. And you did it anyway. Even if it killed you. …of course we're okay, Shepard."

The two men savored the silence for a minute. Just like when this crazy ride had started all those years ago on Eden Prime, Shepard and Joker were there to see it end. Joker was the first to break the tension. "All right, enough of that. Ashley's going to kill me for beating her here, so I'm gonna jet."

The Normandy pilot made it to the door before he turned around. "You know… she's the only one who believed you were still alive. When we got the call that the Citadel was destroyed, we all gave up. Except Ash. She would have hitchhiked back to Earth if she could, Shepard."

Unable to keep up with a serious conversation even for a minute, Joker shook his head and smirked. "She was pretty damn insufferable. I can't wait 'til you're back in charge so Williams will stop busting my balls. Also, if you need a good brand of crutches, I've got lots of good recommendations." Joker tipped his hat and then disappeared out the sliding doors.

Rubbing his forehead, Shepard could scarcely believe what had happened. It did bring to the forefront the nagging worry he'd been pushing aside for sometime _. On the other side of the galaxy, on the quarian home world Rannoch, what was the reaction? The geth had been helping. Building houses. Repairing infrastructure. Jumpstarting immune systems. Maybe… maybe all that assistance wasn't lost. Maybe I didn't destroy all the good everyone had fought so hard for._

_Maybe there was still hope._

Speaking of hope.

A light _swish_ preceded the opening of the double doors to Shepard's room. Ashley Williams strode in, waving off Miranda Lawson who was a step behind.

"I'll talk to Wrex, Miranda. I'm sure the krogan can spare a couple egg incubators for you to modify for your lab setup." Miranda started to reiterate how quickly she needed the equipment, but Ash cut her off with a handwave. "I'll get it. And you should be out celebrating already. Or did they not teach you how to enjoy getting promoted in Cerberus?"

Miranda placed a haughty hand on her hip as the two women exchanged cross glances; Ashley's was warm with amusement while Miranda's was an icy blue staredown. A _ping_ on Miranda's Omni-tool broke the stalemate and sent the Operative out of the room to her next task, though she muttered a veiled threat about picking up this conversation later.

Ashley rolled her eyes as she pulled up the corner chair to the edge of Shepard's bed. "The woman is like 10 years older than me and still doesn't know how to be happy for herself. I give you permission to shoot me if I ever get a stick wedged that far up my ass. Or just pull it out and beat me with it. Whichever's quicker."

And there she goes. _Always in the middle of a conversation, like it was the most natural thing in the world for us._ Shepard's smile actually started to hurt his cheekbones some, it was that foreign and overdue. "Miranda got promoted? Wouldn't she have to be in the Alliance first?"

"Well, it's more of a job offer. Hackett and the Alliance brass agreed to joint funding for the human equivalent of the STG. Part military control, mostly privatized. To help figure out what to do with several million tons of Reaper corpses plus get the talent to get the relays back online. Miranda's been asked to be the project director." Ashley tilted her head. "As long as she doesn't name the damn thing _Cerberus 2,_ I don't care what she does."

Shepard could only smile back. He let the conversation die down just so he could look at her.

She looked thinner. Her cheeks were a little gaunt. Her Spectre uniform was fresh and free of bullet holes. But those eyes still glowed in the dark room and light gently reflected off the gloss on her lower lip. When all his dreams faded to black, all he was left with were her soulful eyes and those luscious lips.

As usual, she blinked first. "So, Shepard."

"Ashley."

"…did you get my messages?"

Shepard laughed. "You weren't kidding when you said you'd mail me every day. I watched every single one. Some I even watched twice."

Ash smiled softly, for once reveling in the intimate conversation rather than running from it. She wasn't a scared little Gunnery Chief anymore. "No kidding? What was your favorite?" Shepard gestured for her to come closer, going so far as to slide over on the bed.

She took the bait and stretched out next to him. His Omni-tool flared to life as he selected his personal favorite, from around three weeks in to his coma. A voice crackled around them, while a tiny screen showed Ashley's past self sitting in Shepard's cabin holding a datapad. She was reading the last passage of her mother's favorite poem, 'The Colossus' by Sylvia Plath.

" _Counting the red stars and those of plum-color._  
The sun rises under the pillar of your tongue.  
My hours are married to shadow.  
No longer do I listen for the scrape of a keel  
On the blank stones of the landing."

"Ah yea. That was a good one." Ashley sighed contentedly, before breaking the silence with sarcasm. "Next time I'll regale you with my spoken-word renditions of particularly graphic _Fornax_ issues. You know, the poetry of the modern man."

Shepard laughed deeply. He tried to move his arm to wrap around hers, but the heaviness just wasn't cooperating. She caught on to his struggling. "Problems, Shepard?"

"Thwarted by injury. Still not used to life after Reapers, I guess." _Will I ever be?_ He wondered.

Staring at him a moment, Ashley reached over and guided his wrist to alight on her left shoulder. She held his hand there a moment before saying softly, "You'll get used to it. The important thing is that there **is** life after Reapers."

They lay still for seconds, minutes. No words were spoken, no gentle caresses were spurred into something deeper. It was just… them. Together. At last.

Shepard was the first one to break the silence this time, though he was reluctant to do so. "How does it feel to be running your own ship?" The conversation was innocuous and easy for two old soldiers like them.

"It feels like it's about damn time," Ashley's laugh was a light exhale. "No, I wouldn't take the Normandy from you, though I'm sure the Alliance has plans for it once the relays get going. It feels like… I don't know. I could get used to it. I guess I finally know what it feels like to be you. I see an objective and then this calculating coolness wraps around everything and I can see a few steps ahead. …is that what it's like for you?"

"More or less," Shepard agreed. He always knew she had it in her to be a leader. Ashley just needed the confidence and opportunity. He had slightly regretted pulling her back aboard the Normandy after the Citadel coup, knowing her talents might be better utilized elsewhere. But …he wouldn't be alive if he'd sent her away.

"Well, at least now **I** get to tell people how high to jump and which turian cheek to kiss. That's the important thing." She closed her eyes and smiled broadly, snuggling into Shepard's chest under his light blanket.

Shepard murmured back. "Very important."

"Oh, I almost forgot."

"What?"

Ashley grinned and sat up, rifling around in a deep pocket on her jacket. A small purple cylinder spun between her fingers, deep red alcohol sloshing inside. "Care for a small drink, Skipper?"

"Very small. I can't imagine my scowling Keeper would approve, considering I'm on a liquid diet and heavy doses of painkillers. And besides, didn't we drink all those?"

She swept her long hair back with a smug nod. "I ran into Conrad Verner, **Doctor** Verner, I should say," Ashley shook her head. _I still can't believe that weird stalker is a xenoscientist_ , "…on the engineering deck. He was passing them out like it was Christmas, to celebrate you waking up. What better way to celebrate Armistice Day?"

"You're kidding me." Shepard glanced at the holo-clock over his medical station. _I'll be damned. That would make our first toast three years ago to the day._

Ashley's smile disappeared in favor of mock seriousness. "Shepard. A Williams never forgets Armistice Day." _And a Williams never forgets her first Armistice Day with a Shepard._

"'Not really a celebration, more like an obligation.' I remember," Shepard chuckled fondly. "I guess I missed the destruction-of-the-Reapers after parties." He swallowed thickly, remembering his friend Mal. _So many years ago. So much gone. Sacrificed. Lost_. "At least tell me they gave it a good name."

"Oh yea, Shepard Day was a big hit." Ashley laughed when he asked, "…really?"

"No, I think they called it something original like V-Day. Victory and then some, Skipper." She leaned down and kissed his forehead. "And then some," she repeated softly, before taking a sip of the liquor. "And then some," Shepard agreed, tipping the phial Ash handed him in toast. He took a deep swallow but sputtered slightly, unused to the taste.

They both traded off sipping the liquor, enjoying the easy silence once more. Earth in the window had dipped to the equator, darkened landmasses getting lost in even darker oceans. There were still a few fires going. Cities were still struggling to recover. But they had a chance, now.

"Where do we go from here, Shepard?" Ash asked, turning back to look at him. He replied, "Are you referring to Earth, our friends, or you and me?"

"You and me. Earth will rebuild. Our friends will recover. But what about us?" She bit her lip for a second before continuing. "Look, I understand if …what we had—have," Ash corrected, "…can only survive when the stakes are high. Do you think—do you want to be ordinary and boring and live in an ordinary and boring galaxy? With me?"

"I have a feeling life around you will be anything but ordinary or boring, Williams." Shepard's eyes crinkled with warmth. "If you'll let me, I'd like the opportunity to try. Will you stay?"

"Always," Ash sighed with relief. "I'll always have your back, Shepard."

Her Omni-tool chirped. He asked if she had somewhere to be. "Probably. But it can wait. …what would you like to do, if you could do anything right now?"

Shepard thought a moment, then a devilish grin grew across his cheeks. "I think you owe me a dance, Williams." Ash smirked, telling him again that he was a terrible a dancer. He didn't care.

She sat up and strode towards the window, firing up the low control panel. A VI warned that adjusting settings would cause an unsafe reduction in gravity. Ash grinned and tapped the glowing green button. _Override_.

The room looked like it was suddenly trapped in slow motion. Blankets lifted off of Shepard in billowing heaps. His medical console began a counter-clockwise spin. The recliner chair Ashley had called home for 20 days or so tipped backward dangerously.

Shepard floated out of his bed towards her, for once not feeling like his muscles were trying to lift bricks. He clasped her hand with a laugh, taking in the absurdity of Ash's appearance in zero gravity. Her hair floated around like it was immersed in water, tangling and loose and light. She had taken off a blue glove to childishly watch it spin away. Her Alliance dog tags came untucked from inside her shirt. They tickled at her neck, while his charred set became disentangled and twirled away towards the ceiling.

Ashley started a kick-swim motion to chase after them, but he held her back. They could get them later. She glanced uncertainly upward, but returned to clasp his other hand in a dance pose. Even without music, the two soldiers pushed and pulled and lifted and swayed to their own rhythm. It was effortless and easy. It wouldn't always be effortless and easy.

He still had things he needed to tell her. About what had happened. About everything he'd done. The few times Shepard said her name and started to explain things, Ash put a finger to his lips and shushed him, returning to the dance.

They still had a lot to talk about.

But, in the meantime: "It's good to have you back."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While EMS is all fine and dandy for the battle, I craved an opportunity for the lives Shepard saves throughout the trilogy to mean something to him. And boy do they all owe him big time. It made sense to me that the more loyalty Shepard earns from his friends, the more likely they'd come to his rescue. I've also been entertaining the idea of creating a sort of appendix for this fic with the complete compilation of all of Ash's vid-mails to Shepard during his recovery, plus a few extra messages from other friends and teammates. Please let me know if there is any enthusiasm for this project.
> 
> If you're interested in an actual follow-up fic, "Idle Tears" serves as a stand-alone spiritual epilogue for the Shepard/Ashley romance. 
> 
> \- Ren


End file.
